Low-Income, Racialized Women's Experiences of Housing Access in Lawrence Heights, Toronto, Canada

Abstract

This thesis investigates the experiences of low-income, racialized women in Toronto’s Lawrence Heights during ongoing redevelopment in the early twenty-first century. Grounded in an intersectional feminist urban studies framework, it examines how poverty, gender, and race shape access to affordable housing and employment, and how social networks mediate everyday challenges and sense of belonging. The study draws on qualitative interviews with residents and insights from service providers alongside social network analysis to explore housing search, employment precarity, discrimination in rental markets, housing repair issues, community safety concerns, and participation in revitalization consultations. Findings highlight multiple barriers to securing adequate housing and stable work, while showing how family, neighbours, and community ties provide resilience, mutual support, and locally specific knowledge. The thesis contributes empirically by centering the voices of marginalized women in Lawrence Heights, analytically by linking intersectionality, social networks, place, and belonging in the context of redevelopment, and materially by speaking to debates on social mix policy and urban planning in Canada.