11
January
2006

Migrants, Minorities and Housing

This report is based on information supplied by the FRA's national focal points, and it shows that across the EU 15 similar mechanisms of housing disadvantage and discrimination affect migrants and minorities, such as denying access to accommodation on the grounds of the applicant's skin colour, imposing restrictive conditions limiting access to public housing, or even violent physical attacks aimed at deterring minorities from certain neighbourhoods.

The report also documents instances of resistance by public authorities to address such discrimination. One theme which emerges from this report is that the idea of ‘integration' of minorities in neighbourhoods can become heavily politicised. The report can find little solid evidence that could justify seeing involuntary spatial mixing as an appropriate route towards social integration.