Access to adequate, suitable and affordable housing is an important first step in the immigrant integration process (Ley et al., 2001; Murdie and Teixeira, 2003).3 It can be argued that immigrants first seek a neighbourhood in which to live and housing for their families. They and their children then look for language training and other educational opportunities. Finally, education influences their employment prospects and source and level of income. More generally, from the perspective of longer term social integration, it has been argued that housing is an indicator of quality of life, including health, social interaction, community participation and general well being