Single parents and gay couples face more discrimination than straight couples searching for rental housing in Metro Vancouver, according to a new study released by the University of British Columbia, reports the Vancouver Sun and Journal of Social Problems.
The study, published in the August issue of the journal Social Problems, found that same-sex male couples who apply for rental housing are nearly 25 per cent more likely than straight couples to be rejected by landlords, while single parents are about 15 per cent more likely to lose out on bids for housing.
UBC sociologists Nathanael Lauster and Adam Easterbrook, with the help of a team of student researchers, analyzed nearly 1,700 online rental inquiries in Metro Vancouver.
The researchers were arranged into nine groups, one for each municipality targeted in the study. Each team emailed queries to online rental advertisements on sites like Craigslist for one-or two-bedroom apartments renting for under $1,700 a month.
They drafted a single, uniform tenancy application, modified only to represent various family orientations, such as a single mother with a son or daughter, two male "partners," or a heterosexual couple. Because the only variable in the queries was family orientation, researchers believe any difference in response frequency or success would stem from the landlord's preference for a certain type of family composition.
According to the B.C. Human Rights Code, which is enforced by a provincial human rights tribunal, a person cannot deny tenancy to an applicant based on marital status, family status, race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, or age.
Heterosexual couples and lesbian couples received the most "positive" responses while gay couples fared the worst, Lauster said.
Discrimination in the rental market across Metro Vancouver also varied significantly depending on the neighbourhood, he said.
In New Westminster, for instance, emails framed as single-parent families were much less successful getting rental housing, despite a high proportion of single parent families already living in the city. On the other hand, gay couples in the simulated email applications were more likely to secure housing within communities with higher concentrations of homosexual residents, such as Vancouver's West End.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/renters+face+discrimination/5317024/story.html
No comments:
Post a Comment