Cooperative housing and the social integration of immigrant households

Summary: The goal of the research was to understand what role, if any, access to a unit in community housing can play in the integration of immigrant households. The impetus for the inquiry lies in the long-standing collaboration between the principal investigator and a community organiser in Parc-Extension, one of the primary destination neighbourhoods for immigrants in Montréal. The organiser's experience in community housing (he helped to set up Hapopex, a community organisation that caters primarily to recent immigrants) raised the hypothesis that certain forms of housing could be more conducive to the social integration of immigrants in the host society. In particular, it was hypothesized that community housing, in which tenants participate actively in their buildings through management or other activities, could provide immigrants with more social contacts and enhanced skills that would facilitate or accelerate their overall integration.