Patterns and Meanings of Housing: Residential Mobility and Homeownership among Former Refugees

Abstract

This article explores the patterns of residential mobility and homeownership, and in particular the meanings that former refugees attach to housing and neighborhood. While there are numerous studies on housing among voluntary migrants, studies that focus exclusively on refugees are rare. This multi-method study is based on interviews and a questionnaire survey with participants from Burma and the African Great Lakes Region in Buffalo, New York, who had arrived in the United States since 1995. Residential mobility patterns and meanings of housing indicate substantial differences between households in the two groups. The central argument of the paper is that the patterns and the meanings of housing are shaped by: (1) current socio-economic characteristics and resources, including educational attainment, employment status, and income; (2) current housing market conditions, including housing prices and racial discrimination; and (3) pre-migration experiences, including socio-economic status, socialization, and the corresponding internalized structures of meanings with respect to residential and housing patterns.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ellen Percy Kraly, Angela Stienen, Roger Keil, Douglas Young, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on this article. This article could not have been written without the financial support from the Mark Diamond Research Fund at the University at Buffalo (SUNY).

Notes

²Refugees who are in the process of being resettled are actually no longer refugees; instead there have become residents. However, I use the terms “refugees” and “former refugees” interchangeably throughout the paper. There is a difference between those refugees who have been granted refugee status by the host country and asylum seekers-those who still seek refugee status. This paper only addresses the experiences of the former.

³This study is based on research conducted in connection with my Ph.D. thesis. For the dissertation, 41 former refugees were contacted and 34 agreed to be interviewed. Of the 34, the participants were born in Burma (9), Sudan (9), African Great Lakes Region (Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; 8), Somalia (2), Liberia (2), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1), Sierra Leone (1), Iraq (1), and Nigeria (1).

⁴Refugees from countries in the African Great Lakes Region share cultural traits, are mostly divided along similar ethnic lines, have lived in geographic proximity, and have experienced civil wars based on similar ethnic divisions.

⁵U.S. Census, 2000, Erie County, New York, Summary File 3: Housing tables H56, H85, Summary File 1: Population table P1; U.S. Census, 2010, Erie County, New York, Summary File 1: Population table HD01; author's calculations.

⁶These data are based on conversations with staff from Journey's End and Catholic Charities of Buffalo–the two agencies responsible for the resettlement of the study participants. Resettlement in Buffalo began in the late 1970s, primarily though churches that resettled Vietnamese and Cambodian families. Many Vietnamese refugees were initially resettled on Buffalo's East Side because of the support Catholic churches provided in that area. During the 1970s, Journey's End began its work on the West Side, supporting Cambodians fleeing violence in their country. During a 1980s crime wave on the East Side, tied to New York City drug gangs moving crack and automatic weapons into Buffalo, resettlement agencies were reluctant to place refugees in that area. During the 1990s, however, Catholic Charities resumed resettlement on the East Side, this time of refugees from the African Great Lakes Region. Over the years Journey's End has resettled thousands of refugees from Burma and other countries mostly on the West Side. It has made logistical sense for Journey's End and Catholic Charities to resettle their clients in those neighborhoods where service providers are located.

⁷The years from 2007 through 2009 is the earliest time period for which homicide data are available by zip code. The data contain the number of homicides committed in zip codes in which study participants from Burma and the African Great Lakes Region were being resettled: West Side (14201, 14213), East Side (14206, 14211, 14212, 14215), and Black Rock/Riverside (14207).

⁸Two of the African Great Lakes Region participants experienced housing discrimination at the hand of realestate agents who steered them away from what the participants perceived to be white and above-average quality neighborhoods in the Buffalo area.

⁹However, some participants from the African Great Lakes Region who live close to the East Side bought brandnew Habitat for Humanity houses, thus trading neighborhood quality for housing quality.

¹⁰The names of participants have been changed for protection of privacy. I interviewed Zaw and Nadege at their respective homes. Both were active members in their respective ethnic communities. Zaw was also involved in several not-for-profit organizations related to refugee resettlement and community development. Nadege attended PTA meetings and meetings of homeowners in her neighborhood.