Somalis lived in houses in Somalia.  Some lived in small houses and some lived in big houses depending on their socio-economic status.  Because the weather was tropical all year round children often played outside of the house.  Most of the people in Somalia owned their homes and few people lived in rented houses. 

Moving to Canada meant leaving your possessions and your properties in the homeland.  Most of Somalis in Canada live in high rise buildings and few live in houses.  Somalis rent as suppose to owning houses in Canada.  

Those Somalis who are on social assistance have difficulty renting apartments because owners prefer not to rent to people on welfare and thus require potential tenants to make specified amount of income which is normally high for the Somalis to meet the requirement.  To deal with this problem Somalis look for co-signers to be responsible of them. 

Somalis tend to have large and extended families. This creates a problem since there are no large homes to accommodate their housing needs in Canada.  Overcrowding is often the result of this unfulfilled need.   

Many Somalis have difficulty accessing government housing because they are not legal residents yet.