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

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.