[1]

Chapter I. Introduction

Access to adequate, suitable and affordable housing is an essential step in immigrant integration. Immigrants first seek a place to live and then look for language and job training, education for their children, and employment (Lapointe 1996, Murdie et al. 2006). Housing is also an important indicator of quality of life, affecting health, social interaction, community participation, economic activities, and general well-being (Engeland and Lewis 2005). This overview provides a synopsis of the findings of a large comparative study of immigrants in the housing markets of Canada's largest metropolitan centres, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. It is the final installment of five separate reports :

• Immigrants and Housing : A Review of Canadian Literature From 1990 to 2005 by Robert Murdie, Valerie Preston, Magali Chevalier, and Sutama Ghosh (2006).
  
  
• The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Montreal Metropolitan Area/La situation résidentielle des immigrants récents dans la Région métropolitaine de Montréal by Damaris Rose, Annick Germain, and Virginie Ferreira (2006)
  
  
• The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Toronto CMA, by Valerie Preston, Robert Murdie, Ann Marie Murnaghan, and Daniel Hiebert (2006)
  
  
• The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Vancouver CMA by Daniel Hiebert, Pablo Mendez, and Elvin Wyly (2006)
  
  
• The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver CMAs : An Overview by Daniel Hiebert, Annick Germain, Robert Murdie, Valerie Preston, Jean Renaud, Damaris Rose, Elvin Wyly, Virginie Ferreira, Pablo Mendez, and Ann Marie Murnaghan (2006)
  
  

The first volume in our series summarizes and synthesizes the key Canadian literature on the relationship between immigration and housing. Separate reports are devoted to a detailed analysis of the housing situation of immigrants in each of Canada's major Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). We have considered each of these centres separately because of important metropolitan variations in immigration and housing markets in Canada. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver each have a particular history of immigration and distinct geographical patterns of immigrant settlement. In essence, immigrants enter a specific and complex housing submarket when they settle in a particular place (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 2004). The specificity of the housing market in each metropolitan area interacts with the distinct patterns of immigration, so that in each place, immigrants confront a locally-specific set of housing opportunities and challenges. In this report, we review the findings of the three separate CMA studies, hoping to provide both a sense of the larger picture of immigrant settlement and the housing markets of Canadian metropolitan areas, and also reveal the important differences between Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Our individual reports have drawn upon new and important information about the housing situation of immigrants, and have been organized into four sections. Each has begun with a review of the history of immigration in the particular metropolitan area in question, and recent trends in the housing market. These discussions have set the context for understanding the social and housing circumstances encountered by immigrants when they first arrived in Canada.

[2]

The next section of each CMA report reviews the housing conditions of immigrants currently living in the metropolitan area. We have emphasized the effects of immigrant status, period of arrival, and ethnic and visible minority status on the housing situation of immigrants. Drawing on special tabulations from the 2001 census (made available by Statistics Canada to researchers affiliated with the Metropolis Project), and where possible invoking comparisons with 1996 census data, we have also compared the circumstances of immigrants in the housing market with those of households that are comprised of Canadian-born individuals. We have further disaggregated the immigrant population, by exploring differences in the housing situations of particular ethno-cultural groups.

We have documented the success of many immigrants in attaining homeownership and the characteristics of immigrant households that are in the rental market. Our findings highlight the situations of those who are experiencing affordability problems. In this, the third section of the individual reports, we have followed conventions developed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 2004), and have examined the relationship between housing costs and household incomes of immigrant households spending at least 30 per cent of their total pre-tax income on housing, as well as a smaller group of immigrant households spending at least 50 per cent of total income on housing. Again, we have disaggregated the metropolitan populations in these categories by immigrant status, period of arrival, visible minority subgroups and ethnic origins.

In the fourth section of the reports, we have turned to new data from the first wave of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), conducted by Statistics Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada on a representative sample of immigrants who landed in Canada between October 2000 and September 2001. These data have enabled us to explore the ways that very recently-arrived immigrants find housing and the extent to which their initial housing situations are adequate, suitable and affordable. Significantly, LSIC includes information on the admission class of immigrants—information not collected for the census or in other major Canadian social surveys. Previous research, based on single case studies or surveys in a single city (Renaud 2003 ; Rose and Ray 2001 ; Murdie 2005 ; Bezanson 2003), has suggested that refugees and refugee claimants have more difficulty than other classes of immigrants in the housing market. LSIC allows us to explore the relationship between immigration category at landing and early housing outcomes in the three metropolitan areas, and to relate these findings to the local housing market.

We have structured this synopsis of the three metropolitan reports in the same way, starting with a statement about the changing trajectories of immigration and the housing markets of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. We then summarize the housing characteristics of the immigrant population, compared with the Canadian born, and then focus on households that are in vulnerable circumstances. With the broad sweep of immigration and housing in mind, we turn to LSIC, which helps us understand how these long-term patterns are established in the first few months of the settlement experience. We conclude this report by summarizing our thoughts on these findings in relation to Canadian immigration and housing policies. Finally, we have provided two appendices, one surveying the major findings generated by the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, and the other examining the longitudinal side of the LSIC in much greater detail, through an event analysis of immigrants' acquisition of housing over their first half-year in Canada.