Landing at Home: Insights on Immigration and Metropolitan Housing Markets from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada

Abstract

This paper examines the housing conditions, needs and trajectories of recent new- comers to Canada, by focusing on the first few months of their adjustment process. Until now, most research in this field has been unable to provide a comprehensive description of this early stage of settlement. Employing individual survey data from the first wave of Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), we draw a portrait of immigrant and refugee residential out- comes as observed six months after arrival. In particular, we highlight five novel insights, centered around the rapidity with which newcomers in general enter the housing market, but also around the appreciable variability of outcomes in tenure status, class of entry, metropolitan area of settlement, and assessment by newcom- ers of their situation in the housing market. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of these variegated findings for the settlement experience of recently arrived immigrants and refugees and, more broadly, for social policy in the areas of housing and newcomer integration.