July 28, 2006
Migrants, Minorities and Housing: Exclusion, discrimination and anti-discrimination in 15 member states of the European Union
The report "Migrant, Minorities and Housing" is based on information supplied by the EUMC’s national focal points. It shows that across the EU15 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.