Barriers to Equal Access in the Housing Market: The Role of Discrimination on the Basis of Race and Gender

Abstract

This discussion of the nature of and reasons for barriers to equal access to housing in Canadian housing markets focuses on Metropolitan Toronto's rental housing market. The paper argues that all people do not have equal access to rental housing because discrimination is found in the rental market as it is throughout society. All types of discrimination exist in a system of mutual support, and there is nothing special about housing markets to protect them from the forms of discrimination that permeate the rest of society. Discrimination in the rental market takes the form not only of denial of access to housing units, thereby limiting the number, type and location of options available to certain groups, but can include the extraction of a financial premium for access. The premium can be in the form of higher rent or key money.