This thesis explores the relationship between restrictive screening techniques imposed by landlords and the ability of refugee claimants to access housing in a medium-sized Canadian city. While existing research has explored refugees’ experiences with resettlement, few have focused specifically on refugee claimants who arrive in their destination country with specific health needs, limited resources, and access to different services compared to other entry categories. Using qualitative research techniques, this study sought to better understand the experiences of refugee claimants as they search for housing in a medium-sized Canadian city. Through interviews with service providers, volunteers, and refugee claimants themselves, three main themes were identified. First, we explore the relationship between a competitive housing market and the ability of landlords to be selective about who they rent to. Our findings suggest that the power imbalance between landlords, tenants and applicants is only amplified in a competitive market and allows landlords to choose applicants based on their own personal biases. Second, participants identified strict rental applications as the primary mechanism used by landlords to filter applications and identify tenants that they deemed to be “desirable”, while excluding other groups. In many cases, refugee claimants were found to be uniquely (and negatively) impacted by this practice because they often do not have the personal or financial resources available to successfully fill out these applications. Finally, participants identified two structural barriers which hindered a refugee claimants’ ability to access housing and, when combined with strict rental applications, often resulted in their exclusion from housing. This thesis is relevant to the current Canadian context, given the government’s continued commitment to resettling refugees and the increasingly competitive housing markets across Canada. Overall, this thesis adds to the existing literature regarding the resettlement experiences of refugee claimants and their ability to access housing in a medium-sized Canadian city. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Housing is a key social determinant of health. Further to this, my research will show that it is through housing that all other health determinants are fully actualized. For refugee claimant (RC) families, housing is the most immediate and pressing need upon their arrival in Canada. The objective of this exploratory qualitative study is to examine the housing experiences of refugee claimant (RC) families in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and its impact on the health, well-being, settlement and integration of this population from the perspectives of services providers. Given the increasing inflows of asylum seekers in Canada over the past few years, there is an urgent need to examine their housing experiences and subsequent impacts on health and well-being. Using purposive sampling, seven service providers from five different refugee centres and family shelters in the GTHA were recruited. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed thematically. Findings demonstrate that accessing both emergency and permanent housing upon arrival is particularly difficult for RCs, given that the demand for housing continues to surpass availability in the emergency shelter system and private housing market in the GTHA. In their search for permanent housing, many RCs rely on the private housing market, where discrimination and affordability are common barriers. With an uneven and difficult trajectory towards housing access, many RCs face health issues associated with stress, poverty, and homelessness, which disrupt their settlement and integration in Canada. This research concludes by offering recommendations for policy and program level changes to improve refugee housing access in the GTHA. These recommendations include increasing service provision capacity in shelters, expanding transitional housing options for RCs, increasing investments in subsidized housing, limiting government involvement in REITS and increasing incentives to build more subsidized housing. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

The best educational and living conditions for the child is well functioned family, the family where the child holds the place of its own, where´s the chance to get the most valuable emocional and practical experiences innevitable for its entire harmonic evolution. This diploma work is concentrated for the Gipsy child and its chance to get a "new" family. In the theoretical part I´m concerned in the Gipsy minority and the problematics of the substitutional family care, practical part is concentrated to the tolerance of the claimants to accept child of the Gipsy minority, or half-Gipsy origin.

The purpose of this study was to (a) explore the lived experiences of school district employees who have sustained on-the-job injuries with specific attention to employee perceptions of employer response after injury and (b) examine whether purposeful empathetic response from the employer after workplace injury was related to changes in employee perceptions of employer response. This study included both qualitative and quantitative methods. In Phase 1, the sample for the interviews included nine workers from a large school district in South Florida who had active injury claims within two years before the study began. The Phase 1 findings were that the level of assistance and type of support received after reporting an injury varied among participants, despite working for the same employer; that the perceived response from the employer was more influential in affecting the participants' experience of workplace injury than participants' perception of the response of their coworkers; t hat the reaction from a majority of the school district employees (6 of 9) who were injured at work mirrored perceived employer response; and that more than half of the nine participants had unmet expectations of their employer with respect to how they were treated after experiencing workplace injury. In Phase 2, the 91 subjects that participated in the organizational response survey (See Appendix E and Appendix F) were employees from the same school district who were injured during an eight-week period. Data from three subscales (organizational support, return-to-work policies, and post-injury job satisfaction) on the survey instrument were compared between two groups. / An experimental group received purposeful empathetic response from both the employer at the local school or department level as well as contact from the employer's Risk Management department. Analysis of variance was used to compare responses of the groups. A Bonferroni adjustment of .05/3 or .017 was applied: the result was non-significant. This finding suggests that purposeful, empathetic contact alone was not enough to significantly affect the participants' scores. / by Nancy S. Patrick. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010? / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The state of poverty in South Africa dictates how social policies should intervene to make an impact on poverty alleviation. Government formulated the three pillars of Land Reform Programme i.e. the Land Restitution Programme, Land Redistribution Programme and the Security of Tenure Programme. The Land Restitution Programme was utilised, through which people were given the opportunity to choose their preferred option ranging from original land, alternative land, financial compensation and involvement in development projects. The Programme aimed to reduce the unequal distribution of land amongst the racial groups of South Africa and alleviating poverty. During the process of land restitution the subjective impacts were debated more than the objective impacts, which were exacerbated by the experience of Zimbabwe as one of South Africa’s neighbouring countries. To date, little empirical evidence exists concerning the actual objective and subjective impact of the Land Restitution Programme. The aim of the study was to evaluate the objective and subjective impacts of the Land Restitution Programme on poverty. A quantitative research approach was used to conduct an impact evaluation study. Data was gathered by means of self-administered questionnaires. Respondents included land restitution applicants, namely: the claimants who were dismissed because they did not meet the acceptance criteria, the claimants who rejected the offer of financial compensation and the claimants who accepted the land restitution offer of financial compensation and eventually became the beneficiaries of the Land Restitution Programme. The research findings revealed that the Land Restitution Programme has both objective and subjective impacts on poverty. The subjective and objective impacts have both positive and negative impacts. The positive objective impacts were revealed to include the improvement in the aspects of quality of life as individuals and as communities, reconciliation at an individual, family and community level, and personal development such as improvement in community participation, empowerment and capacity building. The line, however, between the subjective and objective impacts was found to be very thin. The greatest impacts were amongst the accepted land restitution claimants and the least impact was amongst the dismissed and refused claimants in comparison with the accepted land restitution beneficiaries. The findings confirmed the hypothesis of the study, namely that if the poorest of the poor beneficiaries receive the land restitution compensation their levels of poverty decreases, compared to those that are refused or dismissed for land restitution compensation. The study revealed that the negative impact of the Land Restitution Programme is on its ability to acquire title to land. The claimants and beneficiaries of the Land Restitution Programme still regarded the programme as effective even though it has challenges in terms of addressing poverty alleviation. The study concluded that the Land Restitution Programme should be implemented within a Framework for Poverty Alleviation. Such a framework needs to go beyond the legalistic framework that is provided by the Land Restitution Act no 22 of 1994 which currently do not address approaches to poverty alleviation, strategies for alleviating poverty and aspects of quality of life that are measurable. The study recommended the implementation of a Land Restitution Programme Framework for Poverty Alleviation, which include elements of measuring poverty and aspects of quality of life and poverty alleviation approaches such as the livelihood approach, asset vulnerability approach, compulsory asset redistribution approach, and social development strategies. It is further recommended that the Land Restitution Programme Framework for Poverty Alleviation should be informed by the voices of the poor, professionals and international donor communities in order to comprehensively make an impact in graduating the poor from being poverty stricken to being self sufficient and self reliant. / Dissertation (MSD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted