Finding housing for the Syrian refugee newcomers in Canadian cities: challenges, initiatives and (preliminary) lessons learned

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Finding housing for the Syrian refugee newcomers in Canadian cities: challenges, initiatives and (preliminary) lessons learned

By CIQSS

Date and time

Wed, May 17, 2017 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

Location

CIQSS - bureau 420

3535 Chemin Queen Mary Montréal, QC H3V 1H9 Canada

Description

For newcomers to Canada, obtaining decent and affordable housing is an anchor point for embarking on their resettlement process. In cities across Canada, the volume and timing of Syrian refugee arrivals in winter and spring 2015-2016 generated a huge effort by the organizations, networks and groups comprising the “local social infrastructure” of newcomer settlement to help these newcomers find housing. The challenges were significant, especially in high-rent cities and for the government-assisted refugees on account of the prevalence of large families and individuals with special needs. This Webinar will share preliminary findings of a qualitative study—one of the 25 short-term research projects funded under a joint initiative of the SSHRC and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“Targeted Research: Syrian Refugee Arrival, Resettlement and Integration”)—that explores the commonalities and differences in how this process of helping to find housing unfolded in different urban contexts. Themes include making local coordination work in a context of uncertainty, effectively mobilizing volunteer energies, and the dilemmas associated with ad hoc solutions to bridging the housing affordability gap. One year on, as refugees meld into the general newcomer population, the ongoing economic precariousness of many of this cohort raises key questions as to effective policy levers for their maintenance in a stable and satisfactory housing situation.

Damaris Rose is Professor of Urban Studies at INRS – Centre Urbanisation Culture Société in Montréal. She has led a number of studies on the housing situation of immigrant and refugee newcomers. A social geographer, her other areas of expertise are the socioeconomic dimensions of urban neighbourhood change and the housing choices of “non-traditional” households. She has published in major international journals and in important edited volumes, in English and French.

Alexandra Charette (MSc, INRS) is a doctoral student in Political Science at the University of Ottawa. Both her masters’ and PhD research address issues related to newcomer integration in Montréal.

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