Immigrants to the Prairies find housing search more difficult than the national average, survey finds

This story is part of Welcome to Canada, a CBC News series about immigration told through the eyes of the people who have experienced it.

Vinith and Deeksha Jain arrived in Saskatoon from India last year with high hopes for their new life in Canada, immediately applying for jobs and searching for an apartment.

But after months renting a room inside someone's house as their hunt for housing dragged on, the couple started doubting their decision to immigrate to Saskatchewan.

"We were really worried," Deeksha said. "I was feeling like we should give up and maybe we should go back to our home country."

The Jains faced a harsh reality in the housing market that many recent immigrants are reporting, along with concerns over the cost of living and the economy. In a new Pollara survey commissioned by CBC News, half of newcomers polled said they had trouble affording rent or housing when they first arrived.

A little more than 1,500 adult Canadian residents were surveyed online between Nov. 1 and 18, 2024. They all arrived in Canada in the past 10 years. The poll has a comparable margin of error of about 2.5 per cent.

• To read more about CBC's immigration survey, the methodology, and its results, visit cbcnews.ca/welcometocanada.

About four in 10 people surveyed said they found it difficult to find any place in their new city, regardless of cost. Respondents on the Prairies reported even more difficulty with their housing search than the national average.

Almost two-fifths of newcomers across the country said they would consider moving to another province, mentioning concerns over the cost of living and housing.

'It was a stressful time'

The Jains came to Canada under Saskatchewan's immigrant nominee program, which selects newcomers with skills and experience in occupations that are in high demand in the province.

Vinith is an engineer and his wife, Deeksha, works in human resources. They expected to land jobs in their fields in Saskatoon, but struggled. Vinith eventually took a "survival job" at 7-Eleven to make ends meet.

As the couple tried to focus on the job hunt, building a social circle in their new community and settling in, the lack of adequate housing lingered.

As if Saskatoon's low-vacancy rates and rising rents weren't enough of a challenge, they also faced extra obstacles as recent immigrants. With no credit history in Canada, references or jobs, landlords kept rejecting their applications.

"It was a stressful time," Vinith said. "There was always a tension in the back of our mind that we need to get into some good and bigger accommodation so that we can prioritize and plan our future."

After about eight months, the Jains found a comfortable apartment with the help of a friend and landed jobs in their areas of expertise. But they worry the challenging housing market could lead to other newcomers falling victim to scams or being taken advantage of by landlords.

Precarious housing for refugees

Immigration settlement workers are also seeing the impact of a tightening rental market, particularly for refugees and newcomers with more limited financial resources.

Carol Abercrombie, the housing co-ordinator at the Regina Open Door Society, works to find housing for government-assisted refugees in the city. A single person receives $800 per month, which increases for a family.

"I could see in the future, if the prices go up and their funds from immigration stays the same, that all we'd be able to afford for them would be a bedroom in a house, where they're sharing the kitchen and the living room," she said.

Abercrombie said some landlords are hesitant to rent to immigrants who are new to Canada, even with reassurances that the Open Door Society is there to help navigate any communication barriers or other challenges.

In Edmonton, settlement workers are seeing refugee claimants end up in the shelter system when they first arrive.

Basel Abou Hamrah came to Canada as a refugee from Syria in 2015 and now works for the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers. He said many refugees are struggling to find adequate housing because of cost and some also face discrimination.

"They cannot afford renting a space. But as soon as they work, they live in overcrowded housing. So they will live in a room, in a big house, with other roommates," he said.

Housing crisis nuanced, experts say

The federal government is among those blaming rising rents and house prices on record-level immigration rates.

But experts say the issue is much more nuanced.

Steve Pomeroy, a professor and housing policy export at McMaster University, said a massive spike in non-permanent residents — like international students and temporary foreign workers — created a surge in demand for rentals.

Pomeroy said Ottawa's plans to curb immigration will help address a short-term mismatch between supply and demand for housing, as more rental units continue to be built.

"People can get on a plane anywhere in the world this morning and arrive tonight, but we can't get a house on a production line this morning and have it ready for tonight. It takes us five or six years to get housing built," he said.

Daniel Bernhard is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, an organization that helps bring newcomers to Canada. He said scaling back immigration will only lead to more economic problems when retention of newcomers in Canada is already on the decline.

"Simply saying that we're going to slow the population and therefore solve all of our problems, I think, is actually very shortsighted and distracts us from the work that we need to do," he said.

Canada is losing one in five immigrants to onward migration in the long-term, according to a recent study by the Conference Board of Canada and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

"If we simply just say, we need to slow the rate of immigration because of the number of available houses, we are also going to slow our growth in our health-care workforce, in the early childhood education workforce, in a number of these categories where we have manifest shortages that are hurting Canadians right now," Bernhard said.

With the housing crisis, Hamrah is also concerned about a rise of anti-immigrant sentiment toward refugees and other newcomers. He disputed the link beween immigration levels and the lack of places to live.

"The housing shortages are caused by systemic issues, not by one group of people," Hamrah said.

"The issue is not the level or the high numbers of refugees and the newcomers. The issue is that we need to have a system in place in order to welcome more people."