On February 7, U of T’s Department of History and the School of Cities held “A Symposium on the Histories and Geographies of Housing Discrimination” as part of a series of events celebrating Black History Month. 

The symposium, organized for the second consecutive year by Department of History PhD candidate Catherine Grant-Wata, included several presentations focusing on anti-Black housing discrimination in Canada. Grant-Wata has been researching the topic of racial discrimination in housing since receiving her master’s degree where she wrote her thesis on the history of housing discrimination in Toronto from 1961–1977. 

The event featured keynote speaker Joe Darden — a professor emeritus from Michigan State University — whose research expertise is in residential segregation, social inequalities, and immigration. 

Housing discrimination in the US and Canada

The event began with Grant-Wata’s welcoming speech, where she shared insights about racial discrimination in Canada’s housing sector. 

“Canada has what I’d call its own unique brand of maple-sugar-coated anti-Black sentiment and racism,” argued Grant-Wata. She said that even though racism in Canada is “disguised by a sickeningly sweet veneer of politeness,” it is “no less dehumanizing or demoralizing” for Black Canadians. This is apparent with housing discrimination. 

Grant-Wata then introduced Darden, who discussed the causes of racial discrimination in housing in the US.

He began his presentation by emphasizing that white supremacy ideology is what causes racial residential segregation in neighbourhoods today, as those who hold that ideology want to keep Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian communities “separate and unequal… to satisfy white supremacy.”

Darden mentioned the US’ Fair Housing Act, saying that “[housing discrimination] continues because there’s a lack of enforcement of the Fair Housing Act of 1968.” The act “prohibits discrimination by direct providers of housing… to persons because of: race or color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.” 

“Many whites in the US do not want to have [the act] enforced because they don’t want to have to get [an] integrated neighbourhood,” explained Darden. “White supremacy [is to] maintain and protect white dominance by maintaining neighbourhoods.”

According to 2021 research from the University of California, Berkeley, 81 per cent of metropolitan regions in the US were more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990. 

Following Darden’s speech, U of T Department of Sociology Associate Professor Prentiss Dantzler discussed the housing situation in Canada, which “[seems] very similar to the US context, but [gets] co-opted or diverse in very different ways.”

In an interview with The Varsity, he explained that Canadians “have this complicated country, given that we have a high immigration policy… so [the issue of housing challenges] gets conceptualized or… described as an immigrant thing when it’s not particularly just an immigrant story.”

A 2023 report by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) showed that both immigrant and non-immigrant racialized groups can be in core housing need, meaning their houses can fall below at least one of the adequacy, affordability, or suitability standards. From 2011 to 2016, the percentage of racialized immigrants in core housing needs was 27 per cent, which was only slightly higher than that of racialized non-immigrants at 24 per cent.

CMHC’s report also found that while an immigrant status is less strongly linked to persistent housing difficulties, being a racialized person increases the possibility of experiencing core housing needs. This pattern is seen in housing discrimination as well, where the renters’ racial identities increase barriers.

A 2022 study by the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights found that newcomers in Canada experienced more discrimination when they revealed their racial background to the landlord. 

Additionally, the study found that undercover phone audits revealed that newcomer auditors who are men experienced a 267 per cent increase in discrimination when they had racialized accents while speaking to landlords on the phone. Newcomer auditors who are women saw a 62 per cent increase in discrimination when they had a racialized accent. 

Dantzler finished his presentation at the symposium by informing the audience about his latest project, the U of T Housing Justice Lab: a research initiative on improving housing justice in North America. 

The lab’s work focuses on the “Racial Equity and Anti-Displacement Initiative;” the “Ensuring Quality Urban Affordable Living Initiative;” and the “Fostering Reparative Equity for Empowered Living Initiative.” These initiatives aim to help reduce the effects of eviction on racialized communities in the GTA and support the development of housing across North America.

Danzler’s team has conducted research into the eviction rates among racialized communities in Toronto, which showed that neighbourhoods with a higher concentration of Black households had the highest odds of experiencing eviction compared to other racialized neighbourhoods. During his presentation, Danzler said that he’s been in communication with racialized communities in Toronto to find out more about the displacement rates.

Attendees’ insights 

Other student and professor attendees spoke on a variety of topics related to racialized housing discrimination, such as forced evictions in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympics, slum clearance in India, and anti-Black rental housing discrimination in Toronto.

Some of the attendees spoke to The Varsity about their impressions of the event and the speeches. 

Titobi Oriola — a first-year student from Nigeria studying international relations — came to the event to give a speech about “stories near and dear” to him, involving communities in Lagos facing forced evictions.

During his interview with The Varsity, he spoke about his move from a “third-world country” to Canada, and how that changed his perspective on housing discrimination.

“Moving to Toronto, experiencing and seeing housing discrimination in a different form, in a place that I thought was so much better, it sort of brought my attention to the fact that that is a very real issue… in the present day and age,” said Oriola. “Housing discrimination is something anyone can face.”

A U of T alumnus, Anyika Mark, had similar sentiments. She came to share the story of her community in the ‘Little Jamaica’ neighbourhood in Toronto, and the Black communities’ gentrification: a practice where wealthier residents move to a poor area of the city, renovate homes and businesses, causing property values to rise, which displaces the original, usually poorer, residents.

“Little Jamaica… has been such a huge part of my childhood and my adolescent experience,” said Mark. “…To know that it can be so easily dismissed as not relevant or not important by our city, by our province, especially our province — the fact that they’re willing to watch that fade away — is not okay with me.”

Others attended the event out of interest in the topic. 

James Glaser — a fourth-year student studying sociology — said he came because of a class he took a year before that sparked his interest in housing and its effects on his generation.

“I think housing is something that’s going to affect our generation the most because we’re the ones who are going to bear the consequences of all these barriers that are coming up,” he said.

Glaser added, “We’re going to be the ones who aren’t able to afford it, and because the system that we’ve lived in for so long is based on owning a home as your ticket to financial security and financial freedom… we either need to find a way to fix the system and go back to the way it was, or fix the system in a way where… we don’t see housing as a ticket to financial freedom, but more as a human right.”