According to a study from University of British Columbia, single parents and homosexual male couples are facing significant discrimination in the Metro Vancouver rental housing market.
Gays men are 25 per cent more likely, as singletons are 15 per cent more likely, to be rejected by prospective landlords than their heterosexual couples.
Published in the August issue of the journal Social Problems, the study was the largest investigation of housing discrimination towards single parents, and the first of its kind to pin down geographic variables in their discrimination.
Surprising, then, since Vancouver is reputed to be a tolerant and sexually diverse community. To lead author Nathanael Lauster, a professor in UBC's Dept. of Sociology, this means that housing discrimination may be even more pervasive in other cities.
Despite strong housing laws against discrimination, after nearly 1,700 online rental inquiries in Metro Vancouver, the study found that discrimination varied significantly by neighbourhood, with East Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster -- areas popular with single parents -- reporting the most discrimination.
"For single parents, the discrimination may be based more on their real economic marginalization," Lauster said.
For gays, the opposite was true. Neighbourhoods with large gay populations, like Vancouver's West End and West Side, showed significantly lower levels of discrimination towards male same-sex couples. Approximately 10 per cent of same-sex couples in Canada live in Vancouver.
Curiously, the study -- which focused on online entries through popular online housing websites like Craigslist -- found no significant differences in landlord responses to female same-sex couples relative to heterosexual couples. And no landlord or property manager received more than one e-mail inquiry during the study.
While discrimination by sexual preference or family relationship is illegal in Canada, clearly more needs to be done to ensure landlords treat prospective renters fairly.
Should Canada implement the equivalent of affirmative action in the rental market? Or is it a landlord's prerogative to whom they should and shouldn't let their property?
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