MOOSE JAW — Drugs, homelessness, the downtown, potholes and crime are some issues on residents’ minds, according to results from a survey that city hall conducted as part of its 2025 budget preparations.
The “Priorities and Potential Survey” was open from Sept. 9 to 29 and received 700 responses — about 2.1 per cent of Moose Jaw’s population — which was 235 more responses than last year, according to a Dec. 16 city council report.
In 2023, 465 people responded to the survey, while 396 responded in 2022 and 476 responded in 2021.
Based on the demographic questions, the “typical” survey respondent was female, over age 35, had lived in Moose Jaw for more than 15 years, worked full time, was a non-business owner, had income over $100,000 and had no children, the report said.
Quality of life
When asked to rate their overall quality of life today, 52.07 per cent of respondents expressed a satisfactory opinion — excellent, good or fair — of living in Moose Jaw, the data showed. However, 41.34 per cent said life could be better and 6.58 per cent said life was terrible.
During the past three years, 29.99 per cent said life had improved greatly, slightly improved or stayed the same, while 67.58 per cent said life had become slightly worse or much worse.
Satisfaction with city services
The categories of services that respondents were most pleased with — from fair to good to excellent — were:
- Parks and recreation venues and programming: 80.06 per cent and 80.23 per cent, respectively
- Permitting and licensing: 76.27
- Website and city app: 75.94 per cent
- Accessibility: 74.85 per cent
- Waste/recycling collection: 68.05 per cent
- Green space maintenance/beautification: 61.66 per cent
- Bylaw services: 60.54 per cent
- Water and sewer: 56.61 per cent
- Transportation: 56.23 per cent
- Customer service: 55.98 per cent
- Road repair/maintenance: 18.03 per cent; 81.97 per cent of people said this area was poor or below average
Overall, when asked how satisfied people were with the total quality of services they receive, 35.82 per cent were positive, 17.05 per cent were neutral, and 47.13 per cent were negative, the report said.
Ranked questions
A new feature in this year’s survey was city hall asked people to rank questions from 1 to 7 about affordability, housing, safety and accessibility.
Results showed that 38 per cent were satisfied with the affordability of living here, 48 per cent were satisfied with their housing situation, 34 per cent were satisfied that Moose Jaw was safe and 42 per cent said Moose Jaw was accessible.
On a deeper level, 86 per cent of people said they had not experienced challenges accessing city venues, while only five per cent — or 38 people — said they had concerns with city hall’s limited in-person hours.
Craig Hemingway, acting director of strategic growth, told council that city administration likely won’t use the new ranking questions next year because very few people moved the on-screen ranking slider. Instead, there were likely more effective ways to ask those questions in the future.
Communications
With communications about services and programs, 326 people said they were very satisfied, satisfied or somewhat satisfied, 190 were neither satisfied or dissatisfied, while 177 were somewhat dissatisfied, dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, the report said.
Furthermore, respondents’ preferred methods of receiving information were social media, the city website, the city app, the mail, the radio, email, the newspaper and other media.
Customer service
Most people who contacted the city phoned, used the city app, visited in person, used another method, emailed, or sent mail, the report said.
Furthermore, 434 people were pleased with the level of service they received, while 230 were displeased.
What people liked most — from fair to good to excellent — about the customer service they received was the courtesy (75.16 per cent), knowledge (70.18 per cent), helpfulness (63.76 per cent), easy ability to reach the correct department/person (60.83 per cent), timely response (58.94 per cent) and ability to resolve issues (55.54 per cent).
Coun. Dawn Luhning said she knows people who want to contact city hall but lack the technology, while she thought it was interesting that more people called than used the app. She hoped administration could develop a central location for telephone calls so callers weren’t “tossed around from department to department” looking for help.
In response, Hemingway said the highest age demographic to answer the survey was people over age 65, which may explain why more people call than use the app.
Open-ended questions
The survey also asked respondents open-ended questions that let them give written responses, with a “word cloud” visually representing the most common words and phrases.
The topics focusing on quality of life during the past three years, why people feel unsafe, what safety initiative(s) would have a positive effect, the top three issues the city must address, the topics people have called city hall about, the ability to access a building, the most important issue facing Moose Jaw, an initiative or policy to grow the economy and one change to improve quality of life.
Coun. Heather Eby noted that drugs, drug addicts, homelessness, the downtown and Crescent Park were common themes among most word cloud creations. Therefore, during its 2025 budget discussions, council should provide resources to support places like the downtown since many people care about it.
City manager Maryse Carmichael said the responses received this year were similar to last year, while it was helpful to read comments about the areas where residents thought the city could do better.
Carmichael was particularly pleased that only 38 people had issues with city hall’s in-person hours.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.
