Housing Experiences of Black Africans in Toronto's Rental Market: A Case Study of Angolan and Mozambican Immigrants

ABSTRACT/RESUME This paper examines the housing experiences of two relatively recent African immigrant groups--the Angolans and the Mozambicans--in Toronto's rental market through an analysis of their settlement experiences, housing-search processes, and ultimate outcomes. The evidence indicates that both groups encounter significant barriers and challenges in securing affordable and adequate housing. Of these barriers, one of the most commonly cited is prejudice and discrimination by landlords based on race or skin colour. In this context, race and cultural background can be seen as major barriers to equal treatment for members of certain visible minority groups in Toronto's rental housing market. Ce document examine les experiences en matiere de logement de deux groupes d'immigrants Africains dont l'arrivee est relativement recente--les Angolais et les Mozambicains--dans le marche locatif de Toronto par l'analyse de leurs expefiences d'etablissement, des processus de recherche d'un logement et des resultats definitifs. La preuve montre que les deux groupes ont ete confrontes a des obstacles et a des defis importants dans l'obtention d'un logement abordable et adequat. Les prejuges et la discrimination des proprietaires en fonction de la race ou de la couleur de la peau comptent parmi les obstacles les plus frequemment cites. Dans ce contexte, la race et les antecedents culturels peuvent etre consideres comme des obstacles majeurs au traitement egal des membres de certaines minorites visibles dans le marche des logements locatifs a Toronto. INTRODUCTION Toronto, Canada's largest city, continues to experience the dramatic demographic, economic, and cultural changes that have profoundly altered its social and physical landscape over the past few decades. As a consequence of immigration from around the world, Toronto is today Canada's most culturally diverse metropolis. In 2001, about two million people in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (44% of Toronto's population) were born outside Canada. Of these immigrants, 40 percent arrived during the 1990s (Justus 2004). One of the defining characteristics of recent immigration to Canada has been its cultural and racial heterogeneity. Not only have the source countries of immigrants to Toronto changed from predominantly Britain and continental Europe to a greater proportion of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and South America, but the recent immigrants also come from a wider spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds--including refugees admitted on humanitarian grounds, business immigrants with economic resources to invest in Canada's economy, independent immigrants, and those who come to join members of their families already established in Canada (Bourne and Rose 2001; Murdie and Teixeira 2003). Toronto's black community represents the heterogeneity of migrant communities in Canada. For example, although the mass media routinely tends to portray Blacks as a cohesive group, it is a very diverse population. The black community includes Black Canadians and Americans, Black South Americans, Black Africans, and Caribbean Blacks. Immigration has contributed to the growth of this population in recent years. Statistics Canada records that, in 2001, Canada's black population was 622,210, making it the third-largest visible minority group in the country after Chinese and South Asians. Most members of this group have settled in Canada's two largest urban centres: 46.8 percent live in Toronto and 21 percent in Montreal. About half of the black population (52%) consists of immigrants to Canada, most of whom have arrived since the early 1980s (Mensah 2005). Black immigration from Africa to Canada is a relatively recent phenomenon. Canadian immigration policies have not historically favoured immigration from Africa because of prejudice and general discrimination based on race, nor have these policies encouraged the resettlement of African refugees in Canada. …