Housing affordability in this city is not just an issue of home ownership. For young people, and an increasing percentage of the population in Vancouver, bigger concerns include rent caps and developing rental housing.

This timely topic will be part of a larger conversation presented by Metropolitan Collective and Two by Fore, and hosted by the Museum of Vancouver on Friday (April 22). A Future We Can’t Afford? Young Citymakers and the Cost of Vancouver is a panel made up of young urbanists during one of the Museum’s happy hour events running alongside its exhibit, Your Future Home: Creating the New Vancouver.

Your Future Home opened on January 21 and explores 23 ideas for the future, contributed by local architects and designers. It invites people to discover facts about the city and imagine what Vancouver can become. To date, 12,000 people have visited.

Urban Studies Master’s candidate Katelyn McDougall will be a panel member this week and stresses that the conversation around these issues will be multidimensional.

“We’re not strictly focusing on only home ownership or housing,” McDougall told the Straight. “We’re looking at other things like mobility and amenities, culture and activism, and citizen engagement.”

At the beginning of the year, the museum updated its vision statement to do more activities like this that contribute to a socially connected and civically engaged city.

McDougall credits events like this one facilitated by the Museum for bringing pressing issues and new ideas into public discourse and for creating opportunities where people can come together and mobilize. “It can be very challenging to push forward non-status quo issues if there isn’t space for you to step into that light.”

The bar at A Future We Can’t Afford? Young Citymakers and the Cost of Vancouver opens at 6 p.m. with the discussion beginning at 7 p.m.

Your Future Home: Creating the New Vancouver is on at the Museum of Vancouver until May 15.