The affordable housing crisis in Canada creates many challenges for millions of people trying to find a place to live that they can afford. For many marginalized renters, discrimination presents additional barriers making it even harder for them to find a home.
Over several decades, the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights (CCHR) has consistently heard from renters facing discrimination in the rental housing market. Prospective renters will often report that they have been denied the opportunity to view or apply for an apartment, or that their rental applications are rejected based on some aspect of their identity, such as their racial or ethnic background, immigration status, disability, gender identity, family status, sexual orientation, age, or because they are receiving social assistance.
To better understand these issues, CCHR, in partnership with Dr. Gordon Hodson from Brock University, conducted the first ever national study to measure the extent of discrimination experienced by marginalized renters when they are searching to secure a rental home, and while living in one.
Key findings
By analyzing responses from landlords and property managers to individuals who had inquired about a vacant rental home, along with survey responses from renters about their experiences in rental housing, the study found that:
- In comparison to white individuals, landlords responded to racialized individuals less often and with a shorter message. Landlords responded even less often, with an even shorter message and in a less friendly tone to racialized individuals who had a child.
- In comparison to white individuals, certain groups reported that landlords had asked them more questions about their personal life, for example about their marital status, whether they planned to have children, their immigration status, or whether they smoked. Landlords asked more of these types of questions to people with children, even more to racialized individuals, and the most to newcomers.
- In comparison to white men, landlords requested more proof of income and employment from racialized individuals and women.
- In comparison to white individuals, landlords more often rejected rental applications from racialized individuals, and most often rejected applications from newcomers.
- People with disabilities face high levels of discrimination during their tenancy period. Very often, landlords required people with disabilities to follow different rules than other renters who did not have a disability. People with disabilities also reported experiencing very high rates of aggression and violations of their boundaries from landlords, as compared to renters without disabilities.
- A higher incidence of discrimination was reported in communities with lower vacancy rates and higher income inequality, suggesting that social and economic conditions associated with the housing crisis is worsening discrimination.
Policy recommendations
The results of this research indicate that the groups who face more barriers to access rental housing are lower income households, families with children, single people, women, Indigenous people, racialized people, newcomers and people with disabilities. To address these barriers, the Government of Canada should urgently take the following measures.
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Reduce barriers to accessing affordable and adequate housing.
- Dedicate funding to support intersectional organizations and civil society groups that address the unique challenges that different groups face in securing housing.
- Amend the National Housing Strategy Act (NHSA) to explicitly recognize discrimination based on human rights grounds as a barrier to the enjoyment of the right to housing.
- Require provincial and territorial governments to amend their Residential Tenancies Acts to prevent discrimination during the pre-tenancy period.
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Prevent landlord harassment and neglect in the home.
- Increase funding to federal, provincial and territorial human rights tribunals and commissions to ensure complaints of discrimination are addressed swiftly.
- Increase funding to legal aid systems so that people who are raising a human rights complaint can get assistance and representation throughout the process.
- Require provincial and territorial governments to establish minimum residential maintenance standards in their laws and support municipalities in the development of rental licensing programs to ensure rental homes are well-maintained and livable.
- Create and fund rental housing navigation services to help renters access the supports they need and mediate with landlords on their behalf when issues arise during tenancies.
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Mitigate the impacts of the financialization of housing.
- Improve targets for government-funded affordable housing and prioritize funding allocations to non-profit providers to ensure that marginalized groups have access to housing that meets their needs.
- Collaborate with other levels of government to ensure that affordable and non-market housing options are protected and expanded for lower income households.
- Work with provincial and territorial governments to implement effective rent regulation measures, including vacancy control, to prevent unfair rent increases and economic evictions.
- Overcome the legal and operational bottlenecks in addressing housing discrimination by funding and investigating the nature, scope and impact of discriminatory housing practices./sep