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Learning Objectives
- To examine emerging housing trends in Canada.
- To identify barriers to accessing safe and healthy housing.
- To find out the social effects of unequal access to housing and transportation.
- To recognize barriers that impact access to transportation.
- To understand how access to housing and transportation are interconnected.
- To identify and evaluate strategies that equalize access to housing in Canada.
Summary
Theoretical Perspectives on Access to Housing and Transportation
Functionalists are interested in how cities are useful or disadvantageous to society and how urbanization produces new types of social balance. Housing and transportation issues are seen as “growth pains” in the gradual evolution of the city into a perfect social form. Functionalists support programs to help disadvantaged people in order to solve social problems, increase social cohesion, and prevent crime and disorder.
Conflict theorists are interested in the role of power and influence in how urban environments are composed. From this perspective, capitalist cities suffer urban problems because no powerful group cares enough to prevent them. In Canadian cities, there is a lack of public investment in housing and public transportation; instead, decisions protect the interests of the wealthy. Conflict theorists believe that solving urban problems requires not just housing but also dealing with the unequal distribution of wealth and power in cities.
Finally, symbolic interactionists study how people experience and adapt to city life. For example, Georg Simmel argued that cities are often too stimulating, causing inhabitants to reduce their sensitivity to events and people around them. Herbert Gans focused on how the meaning of city life varies among communities that take part in different subcultures. Housing and transportation opportunities are important influences on the creation of urban subcultures.
Affordable Housing and Homelessness
There are four categories of homelessness. The unsheltered are people living on the street. People who can secure occasional shelter in buildings designed to house them are emergency sheltered. The provisionally sheltered stay with friends or relatives or live in institutions but lack a permanent home of their own. Finally, people who are at risk of homelessness experience unstable housing conditions. People slip in and out of these states of homelessness and may be chronically, episodically, or transitionally homeless. The Homeless Hub estimates that at least 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness in a given year, and over 35,000 on a given night.
Single males aged 25 to 55 make up 47.5 per cent of the identified homeless population. Young people, Indigenous Peoples, and newly arrived immigrants are also overrepresented. The most vulnerable of the homeless include the young, women, the mentally ill, families, single parents, minorities, and seniors. The media tends to portray the homeless as a homogeneous group composed of addicts and the mentally ill. However, most homelessness is caused by broad social structures rather than by personal variables like addiction and mental illness.
The Homelessness Partnering Strategy granted local governments and community organizations $135 million a year to address homelessness. Different cities used their funding in different ways, with varying success. In 2019, the Government of Canada released its National Housing Strategy, a “10-year, $55 billion+ plan that will create 100,000 new housing units and remove 530,000 families from housing need, as well as repair and renew more than 300,000 community housing units and reduce chronic homelessness by 50 percent” (CMHC 2019). It will also encourage researchers to find ways of stemming the flow of people into homelessness.
Emerging Trends in Housing
Many neighbourhoods are undergoing gentrification, meaning that businesses and middle-class homeowners are moving into old downtown areas. This can drive up housing prices and drive out poorer residents. A related trend is the introduction of home-sharing platforms like Airbnb. Landlords rent to temporary guests instead of full-time tenants, creating a market where the demand for housing far exceeds the supply and driving up prices. A third trend is ghettoization, the tendency for certain neighbourhoods to be settled mainly by people of one particular class (often poor) and ethnicity (often racialized). In many cities, efforts have been made to fight these trends, including the development of not-for-profit public housing. Homeownership has also declined in recent years. 30-year-olds have lower homeownership rates than previous generations did and are more likely to live in apartments or with parents. Six out of 10 Canadians who have mortgages are financially overextended, and more Canadians are living alone than ever before.
One barrier preventing people from securing housing is discrimination. Housing discrimination occurs when a potential tenant is unfairly denied an opportunity to rent an accommodation, or when a tenant already living in the rental unit is treated differently than other tenants. All provinces and territories contain in their Human Rights Code prohibitions against housing discrimination. People may also face discrimination while applying for a mortgage or insurance coverage, or when they are subject to discriminatory land-use planning.
Low-Income People in Canada
Low-income Canadians face barriers to securing satisfactory housing that contribute to the cycle of poverty. Renters spend more of their income on housing than homeowners, and their rental payments are not investments. Regions that offer more job opportunities have higher housing and rental prices. Moreover, stable housing has been associated with better employment results, but low-income tenants are most vulnerable to displacement. Alternately, homeownership has been positively correlated with higher educational attainment for children, resulting in a cycle of opportunity. Meanwhile, in rural areas, there is often a scarcity of rental units. As a result, competition increases and can drive up prices. Rural housing also tends to be older and more likely to need expensive repairs. Finally, many low-income Canadians receive social assistance. There is a social stigma associated with this that can interfere with access to housing, even though Canadian human rights law forbids housing discrimination based on income source.
Young People in Canada
The number of young adults living with parents has increased dramatically over the past few decades. One reason young people continue to live at home is the cost of rent versus income. Teenagers are often not eligible for many income support programs, and they often lack the savings they would need to cover living expenses as they attend school. Many landlords also want a young person to provide a guarantor, and in most provinces, some forms of housing discrimination based on age are allowed. Youth homelessness continues to rise rapidly, and many of these homeless youth are unable to attend school.
Women in Canada
Women are more vulnerable to poverty, which is a barrier to securing satisfactory housing. They are also more likely to be single parents, and while it is illegal in Canada, some landlords will refuse accommodation because of family status. Mothers of children with special needs face even more barriers to housing. Women are also disproportionately the victims of domestic violence and need to secure emergency housing for themselves and their children at higher rates than men. Victims of domestic violence who are not financially independent often have few housing choices (even more so if they have disabilities), and they may be at risk of having their children taken away. Landlords may also hold discriminatory beliefs about housing women escaping abusive relationships. In addition, women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence and harassment from landlords. Finally, some low-income women live in social housing units where rent is tied to household income and are sometimes subject to scrutiny when a partner stays over.
Seniors in Canada
Seniors often experience changes in health, finances, family composition, and neighbourhood priorities. The proportion of seniors in Canada is increasing every year, and one in six senior households are in core housing need, meaning that the home is in need of major repairs, too small, too costly, or not well equipped for the senior’s needs. Landlords may (illegally) deny an older tenant housing based on their age or disability. Moreover, some older Canadians have lived in a rental unit for a long time, and as a result their landlord is earning much less from their rental fee than the market would allow. This may encourage the landlord to evict the older tenant. Another residential alternative that many seniors choose is a secondary suite built near the principal house on a property. In many cities, zoning bylaws prevent or limit the construction of a secondary suite, but some cities are making special age-related amendments to the bylaws.
Immigrants in Canada
New immigrants tend to have lower rates of homeownership; the longer they stay, however, the more likely they are to own a home at the same or higher rates as people born in Canada. Many recently arrived immigrants rent their home. It is illegal to discriminate against a potential tenant because of nationality, but recently arrived immigrants still report housing discrimination, especially those who are racialized. Landlords might refuse to rent to immigrants or require them to pay more than first and last month’s rent as down payment. As a result, many immigrants must search for housing for long periods of time, and they may settle in less desirable neighbourhoods. Undocumented workers or refugees may not make formal complaints for fear they will be deported. Newcomers in general may not seek social supports or legal representation if they aren’t aware that such things exist or that their rights have been violated.
Racialized Populations and Ethnic Minorities in Canada
Research in Toronto studied recently arrived people from Somalia, Poland, and Jamaica. The researchers found that Somali immigrants reported the greatest levels of housing discrimination, followed by Jamaican and then Polish immigrants, and speculated that discrimination based on race accounted for the differences. Other studies have also found that Black respondents were less satisfied with their housing and faced greater discrimination. Historically, as Black people moved to northern US cities, they encountered white flight, whereby white residents moved out of the city to the suburbs. This process has been less marked in Canadian cities, although there is still some degree of residential segregation by ethnicity and race. Housing discrimination based on racialization is illegal throughout Canada, but it still occurs in hidden or unconscious forms.
Indigenous Peoples in Canada
Indigenous Peoples in Canada may live on-reserve or off-reserve. Housing on many reserves in Canada does not meet the necessary conditions for health. Housing services and running costs are higher in remote regions, while income is typically lower. In many reserves, water must be boiled before consumption to remove harmful bacteria. In addition, overcrowding occurs at six to ten times the rate it does off-reserve. These housing crises can be attributed to the shortage of cash for infrastructural development and the disorganization of federal funding. Another reason is that many reserves are small, meaning that they cannot benefit from economies of scale. Reserves may also face unique challenges because of their location, including vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Finally, a significant cause is the lack of political will and the systematic racism enduring from colonization. Meanwhile, Indigenous Peoples living off-reserve are more likely to face residential instability, to spend more than 30 per cent of their household income on housing, and to be in core housing need. Many of these individuals find themselves discriminated against on multiple grounds.
LGBTQ+ People in Canada
Discriminatory beliefs about sexual orientation or gender identity can make securing safe housing challenging. Same-sex partners may be denied housing, LGBTQ+ people may be asked inappropriate questions about their sexual practices or family status, and trans people may be subject to increased scrutiny, lack of privacy, or outright neglect. LGBTQ+ youth are at higher risk of homelessness due to family conflict, abuse, and harassment. Gender identity and sexual orientation may also present barriers when people are seeking shared living arrangements, like student residences, seniors’ homes, and emergency shelters. In June 2012, Ontario became the first province in Canada to include “gender identity” in the list of banned grounds of discrimination, and today, all of Canada’s provinces and territories offer similar protection.
People with Disabilities in Canada
Two barriers to housing for people with a disability are accessibility and affordability. Some people with disabilities need changes to be made to their home (e.g., ramps, adapted bathrooms, wider doors, etc.), but these changes are expensive. If a person owns a house and has money, they can afford the necessary renovations. However, if they do not, there are few homes available that already feature these accessibility adjustments, and the homes that do are often not competitively priced. Discrimination is another barrier to housing for people with disabilities, as landlords may deny a person an accommodation based on beliefs about their ability to live independently. Housing discrimination based on disability is illegal in Canada. Landlords have a duty to house a person with a disability, but only to the point of “undue hardship.”
Transportation
Transportation is unique in that it is a “reverse” survival capital: the less you need of it, the better off you are. One of the most typical reasons a person needs transportation is to get to work. For many low-income Canadians, it’s too costly to live close to work, or the limited work opportunities near their homes force them to work someplace else. These commuters must pay more to get to work and have to spend more time getting there. Those who can’t afford to drive a car typically spend twice as much time in transit.
Inactivity (including the time spent driving to work) is at the root of many health problems and can be worsened by the built environment. In recent years, building walkable neighbourhoods has become a goal of urban planners. However, poorer neighbourhoods tend to be less walkable than wealthier ones. Similarly, ethnic groups often concentrate in certain neighbourhoods, which may be low-priced and inconveniently located, forcing a reliance on transportation. A lack of transportation can also have negative effects on emotional well-being, for example, by causing social exclusion.
Consequences of Unequal Access to Housing and Transportation
The “quality of life” is worse in poorer neighbourhoods, and a poor quality of life causes stress and does harm to people’s physical and mental health. Poor housing and transportation are part of a large network of interlocking disadvantages that lead to results – unemployment, crime, stress, poor health – that put people at a further disadvantage. Ensuring that everyone in Canada has access to satisfactory housing would be incredibly expensive. But so too is the cost of homelessness and other social effects of housing instability.
Strategies of Resistance
In Portland, Oregon, the municipal government has considered building micro-houses as a new form of affordable housing. These units could be built quickly and cheaply and would be distributed throughout the city to ensure mixed-income neighbourhoods and mitigate social inequality. However, the local reaction to micro-housing has been far from welcoming, suggesting that systematic change is needed.
Habitat for Humanity is an international organization whose mission is to provide newly built houses for low-income families. They achieve this by partnering the low-income families with volunteer builders and donated land and supplies. The future homeowners must commit to spending at least 500 hours of labour on house construction. Once completed, the houses are sold to the low-income “partner” family at no profit. So far, the organization has provided shelter for 3 million people worldwide, including 2,200 families in Canada.
Finally, individual efforts to solve housing and transportation problems may include giving up driving for walking or cycling. Bike sharing networks allow people to rent bikes as they need them. They make cycling even more accessible to individuals with low incomes and have been established in major cities like Toronto, Montreal, and New York.
Consequences of Poor Housing
The houses of disadvantaged people are more likely than average to be dangerous. This is because disadvantaged people are less likely to have the time and money needed to keep their homes in safe, healthy condition. Injuries in the home can vary in cause and severity, from burns to falls to drowning. To reduce the rates of these domestic injuries, we need to design living spaces that are conducive to people’s health and safety. We can start by regulating and enforcing building codes to make sure living spaces are being built up to standard.