Immigrants and Housing: Recurrent Themes from the Canadian Literature,19902005

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Immigrants and Housing Recurrent Themes from the
Canadian Literature,1990-2005

• Robert Murdie
• Valerie Preston
• Magali Chevalier
• Sutama Ghosh
• Geography Department, York University

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With Financial Support From

• Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)
• National Secretariat on Homelessness
• York University

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Part of a Larger Project

• Exploring the Housing Situation and Needs of New
  Immigrants to Canada
• Literature Review (1990-2005)
• Statistics Canada Metropolis Core Tables (2001
  Census)
• The Early Settlement Experiences Seen Through the
  Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC)

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Need for a Literature Review

• Increased Interest
• Importance of Housing in the Immigrant
  Integration Process
• Access to adequate, suitable and affordable
  housing is an important first step
• Housing as an indicator of quality of life
  (health, social interaction, community
  participation, general well being)
• Few Bibliographies of the Canadian Literature in
  this Field
• Beavis (1995, out of print) Housing New
  Canadians Research Working Group
  (www.hnc.utoronto.ca)

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Construction of the Bibliography

• 1990-2005
• Canadian literature
• Housing demand, housing careers, barriers in the
  housing market, home ownership
• Existing bibliographies, theses and
  dissertations, tables of contents for relevant
  journals

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Outcome
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Why the Increased Research Interest?

• Development of the Metropolis Project and network
  of university based research centres
• Corresponding interest by federal government
  agencies such as CMHC and the Homelessness
  Secretariat
• Increased concern and research capacity of large
  NGOs
• Interest by graduate students and their advisors

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Housing Context Mid 1990s

• Low rental vacancy rates in most large CMAs
• Little new social housing from the feds variable
  by province
• Increased rents, especially Toronto highest
  rents in Toronto
• Increased homeownership costs, especially Toronto
  and Montreal highest ownership costs in
  Vancouver and Toronto
• Finding affordable rental housing is a major
  challenge for immigrants with limited financial
  resources

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Recurrent Themes

• Substantive Findings
• Access to adequate, suitable and affordable
  housing
• Housing trajectories
• Homeownership
• Issues and Gaps
• Policy Recommendations

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Access to Adequate, Suitable and Affordable
Housing

• Affordability is the major barrier
• Affordability much more important for renters
• Physical quality and overcrowding also important
• Most studies acknowledge the importance of
  discrimination
• Discrimination is multifaceted (level of income,
  source of income, family size, immigrant status .
  .)
• Refugees (especially claimants) experience much
  more difficulty than immigrants

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Housing Trajectories

• Variability by immigrant group and location
• In Toronto, groups such as the Poles, Punjabis
  and Sinhalese have fairly quickly established a
  progressive housing career groups such as the
  Somalis are struggling
• Highlights the importance of disaggregating by
  immigrant group and location

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Homeownership

• Most immigrants aspire to homeownership and a
  single detached house in the suburbs
• Factors include family composition, previous
  homeownership, perceived investment value of
  ownership
• There are exceptions (e.g., Ghanaians, Somalis)
• Substantial variation in the extent to which
  immigrants are able to achieve homeownership and
  the length of time that it takes to do so
• Recent decline in immigrant homeownership

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Issues and Gaps

• Most studies are snapshots at one point in time
  (LSIC is an exception) Trajectory studies tend
  to be retrospective
• Advantages and disadvantages of census-based
  analyses versus more local in-depth
  questionnaire-based studies
• Few studies effectively capture issues of housing
  need and housing satisfaction
• Considerable debate about the most effective way
  of measuring discrimination
• Homelessness not as serious as in the general
  population definitional and measurement
  problems social networks
• Little analysis of immigrants and refugees in the
  social housing sector contribution to social
  cohesion and integration

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Policy Recommendations

• A common theme is the need for more affordable
  rental housing
• A number of suggestions relate to immigrants
  and refugees with few financial resources
• Transitional Housing
• Accompaniment
• Mobile Housing Clinics

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Conclusion

• Is Canada moving towards a two or three class
  immigrant society?
• Two classes (Owners and Renters)
• Three classes
• The poor who have enormous difficulty accessing
  good quality affordable housing and little
  prospect of making a progressive housing career
• A middle group of battlers who struggle but
  ultimately achieve homeownership, albeit by
  devoting a large proportion of their resources on
  housing
• A group of well off immigrants who achieve
  homeownership relatively quickly and with
  comparatively little financial sacrifice