August, Martine, and Alan Walks. “Gentrification, Suburban Decline, and the Financialization of Multi-Family Rental Housing: The Case of Toronto.” Geoforum 89 (February 2018): 124–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.04.011.
Financialization, reduced tenant protections, and a decline in social housing facilitate the replacement of poorer renters with high-income tenants. This source explores an emerging form of rental-tenure gentrification, where many renters of low socioeconomic status are forced out of their inner city accommodation into older suburban neighbourhoods. These patterns emerge at the hands of ‘financialised landlords’, firms purchasing older rental buildings and applying various strategies to extract financial value from the properties, existing tenants, and local neighbourhoods. This gentrification facilitates the “restructuring of the social geography of the city”.
Bunting, T., Walks, A., & Filion, P. (2004). The uneven geography of housing affordability stress in Canadian Metropolitan Areas. Housing Studies, 19, 361–393.
This paper reveals that greater attention must be paid to the spatial aspects of housing affordability and to economically-induced homelessness in Canadian metropolitan areas. Mapping the spatial distribution of households spending excessive amounts of income on rent, the authors find that despite a typical decline in housing affordability problems as you move outwards from the inner-city, the inner suburbs in particular reveal a higher incidence of those experiencing affordability problems than has previously been assumed.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Homeownership Rate Varies Significantly by Race. 2021. https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/housing-finance/research-insight-homeownership-rate-varies-significantly-race.
This paper aims to highlight areas of focus for future discrimination research. The source explores how homeownership rates vary across different self-identified racial groups, with some visible minority populations having significantly lower homeownership rates than the national average – Black, Arab, Aboriginal, and Latin American Canadians having the lowest homeownership rates. Further research is needed to understand the factors that contribute to this inequality, with potential implicit biases speculated in the housing finance system and from historic and direct discrimination practices.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Literature Review on Housing Needs: Racialized Individuals and Communities. 2019. https://eppdscrmssa01.blob.core.windows.net/cmhcprodcontainer/sf/project/archive/research_6/20210318-010_69753-rr-lit-review-6-part-series-racialized-individuals.pdf
This literature review examines the housing needs, challenges, and emerging solutions for racialised people, communities, or groups. Identified housing needs are affordable housing, spatial distribution, cultural needs, and ethnic enclaves, and Indigenous housing needs. Barriers to accessing housing include affordability, economic constraints, overcrowding and hidden family homelessness, discrimination, Indigenous homelessness, Northern challenges, and many intersectional challenges. Many newcomers to Canada face difficulties with housing affordability upon their arrival; this initial difficulty with integration, however, typically decreases over time.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Property Values Vary Significantly by Race. 2022. https://assets.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/sites/cmhc/professional/housing-markets-data-and-research/housing-research/research-reports/2022/property-values-vary-significantly-race-en.pdf?rev=c211b0aa-e1a2-4b27-94c8-b61e17ddc923&_gl=1*1a2at0r*_ga*NDg5MjAyMDMxLjE3MTAzNjg0MDA.*_ga_CY7T7RT5C4*MTcxMzc2NzEyOS4yMS4xLjE3MTM3Njc1NjcuMjIuMC4w*_gcl_au*MTE2MTY4NjA1OC4xNzEwMzY4NDAw.
This report investigates how different racial groups navigate the housing finance system. Generational wealth, often accumulated through housing, contributes significantly to current inequality rates and has potential implications for future housing affordability and the persistence of inequalities. Location and family income significantly impact the value of one’s home; the effect is not equal for all racial groups in Canada, however. Evidence shows that Aboriginal, Black, Arab, Latin American, and Filipino Canadians have lower average property values than other citizens, but these initial findings are not unequivocal evidence of housing discrimination.
Canadian Labour Congress. National Committee on Human Rights. Documents on Discrimination in Canadian Housing. Montreal: 1960.
The National Committee on Human Rights of the Canadian Labour Congress submits this brief concerned with the difficulties created by racial discrimination in Canadian housing, specifically requesting anti-discrimination legislation for housing in which the Federal Government has a financial interest. Despite legislation preventing discrimination on the basis of race and religion in Canadian housing, the letter lists several cases of individual housing discrimination from 1956–1959, and calls for the Federal Government to acknowledge and act on practices of housing discrimination through remedial legislation and other measures.
Dion, Kenneth L. “Immigrants’ Perceptions of Housing Discrimination in Toronto: The Housing New Canadians Project.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 57, no. 3, 2001, pp. 523-539.
The Housing New Canadians Project investigates perceived personal and group discrimination among three immigrant communities in Toronto–Jamaicans, Poles, and Somalis. Auditing is the primary methodology in the study; as audits rely solely on individual auditors’ reports, they are only able to provide an index on perceived discrimination as there is little opportunity for corroboration by an independent party. Small audits conducted in Canada suggest that Black and First Nations people suffer the most discrimination when seeking housing.
Fishback, Price, Jonathan Rose, Kenneth A. Snowden, and Thomas Storrs. “New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s.” Journal of Urban Economics (2022): 103462.
This working paper examines the differences between the lending practices of the Federal Housing Association (FHA) and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s through the analysis of loans made by the HOLC and insured by the FHA in Baltimore City, Peoria, and Greensboro. The two lending organisations’ objectives were vastly different; the FHA financed “economically sound” loans while the HOLC refinanced pre-existing loans. The research shows that the FHA’s redlining methodology was not influenced by the HOLC’s redlining maps as many scholars have speculated; the maps summarise the desirability of assigning loans in each neighbourhood of many American cities, assigning the lowest rating–shaded red–to virtually all Black neighbourhoods.
Harris, Richard and Doris Forrester. “The Suburban Origins of Redlining: A Canadian Case Study, 1935-54.” Urban Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) 40, no. 13 (2003): 2661-2686.
This paper asserts the suburban origins of redlining in Canada. Through their case study of Hamilton, Ontario, the authors use land registry and property assessment data to understand patterns of this redlining. Institutional financing (refers to mortgages held by financial institutions) became standard in the 1950s; these institutions had previously been reluctant to make loans in unserviced areas, but it was the East End suburbs by the lakefront that they first deliberately avoided. Lennard (1953) states that discrimination against some suburbs produced “a condition whereby many inferior homes are being built… [thereby] lessening the value of adjacent residences”.
Housing Discrimination and Spatial Segregation in Canada: Submission to: UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing. 2021. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Housing/SubmissionsCFIhousingdiscrimin/CERA-NRHN-SRAC.pdf.
This report is a valuable resource for understanding the numerous ways in which housing discrimination occurs in Canada on the grounds of socio-economic status, social assistance, homelessness, race, disability, gender, and more. The source highlights violations of the right to housing, non-discrimination, and equality, finding direct linkages between homelessness/inadequate housing and systemic patterns of discrimination, colonisation, racism, and marginalisation.
López, S. A., & Teixeira, C. (2022). Settlement and housing experiences of recent Mexican immigrants in Vancouver suburbs. GeoJournal, 87(1), 377-402. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10257-6.
This paper examines the experiences of Mexican immigrants seeking housing in three Vancouver suburbs – Burnaby, Abbotsford, and Surrey. The study finds that despite barriers of spatial segregation by class and race, unaffordability, suburbanisation, and residential mobility, most respondents indicated that their living circumstances had improved since their arrival in Vancouver. Census data reveals settlement patterns of immigrants in suburban areas, navigating the lack of an established Mexican enclave through the development of informal social networks and social media.
Mitchell, Bruce, and Juan Franco. “HOLC “redlining” maps: The persistent structure of segregation and economic inequality.” (2018).
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) of the United States conducts this study to assess how the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) mortgage lending risk (redlining) maps have impacted neighbourhood economic and racial/minority-population composition in the decades following their creation and distribution. In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) developed maps classifying American cities by their perceived level of mortgage lending risk. The NCRC finds a significant association between redlined areas and persistent segregation and inequality; 74% of areas graded as high-risk, or “Hazardous” in the HOLC’s maps are low-to-moderate (LMI) income today.
Motz, T. A., and C. L. Currie. “Racially-Motivated Housing Discrimination Experienced by Indigenous Postsecondary Students in Canada: Impacts on PTSD Symptomology and Perceptions of University Stress.” Public Health (London), vol. 176, 2019, pp. 59-67.
This study examines the impact that housing discrimination has on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Indigenous students. Researchers survey 142 Indigenous students at the University of Lethbridge; participants with children, living with a romantic partner, and/or between the ages of 25–44 were significantly more likely to experience racially-motivated housing discrimination. The research findings conclude that racially-motivated housing discrimination significantly elevates stress levels in Indigenous students and is associated with elevated PTSD.
Novac, Sylvia, Joe Darden, David Hulchanski, and Anne-Marie Seguin. “Housing discrimination in Canada: Stakeholder views and research gaps.” Finding Room: Options for a Canadian Rental Housing Strategy (1990): 135-146.
This study analyses previous research findings and stakeholder views on housing discrimination in Canada. 40 informants from various stakeholder groups across Canada contribute to this research, providing examples of systemic housing discrimination while commonly equating housing discrimination with the denial of access to housing by a landlord. Several gaps in the research are identified, including systematic research on the homeownership sector, housing audit studies in major cities, analysis of perceived discrimination, and survey of specific ethnic groups’ housing experience in specific cities.
Singh, Vikkram. “Dynamics of Affordability and Immigration in the Canadian Housing Market.” International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis 15, no. 3 (2022): 709-732. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHMA-04-2021-0037.
This study explores the various dynamics at play within housing unaffordability faced by different immigrant groups in Canada. Negative financial impact of higher housing costs on low-income households (such as new immigrants), preference of immigrants to live in large populations with established ethnic enclaves, and a trend towards lower homeownership rates in immigrants compared with Native-born Canadians all contribute to vulnerability in the housing affordability crisis among Canadian immigrants.