Immigrant Experience With Housing in Waterloo

The purpose of this qualitative empirical research is to examine the experiences immigrants are having with housing in Waterloo, Iowa. Waterloo has a large and growing population of immigrants. It is important to capture immigrants’ experiences, to facilitate acclamation with their new environment. Going through IBR and following their guidelines, a list of 10 open ended questions was used as a tool to interview four homebased Headstart workers. Each recorded interview was approximately one-hour long. After transcription, dedoose program was used to develop themes. All participants of the study (Head Start workers) worked mostly with Burmese families, but one participant also worked with Congo and South African immigrants. Language, institutional systems, immigrant’s dependency, and violation of city codes, emerged as key themes that limited the quality of housing experiences for immigrants. It is recommended a visual instructional support system such as a film, be made to instruct immigrants about living in apartments and houses in Iowa. Further in-depth research to understand how immigrants from other countries besides Burma are experiencing housing.