Volunteers posing as prospective tenants found discriminatory approaches by landlords in about a quarter of the cases, the study says. (CBC)

A new study into rental housing says race, gender and marital status are all factors when it comes to finding accommodation in Canada's largest city.

According to Toronto's Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, about a quarter of black, South Asian, single parents and households on social assistance face discrimination in the city's rental market.

John Fraser, director of CERA, said in an interview with CBC that "if you're a single mother with a Caribbean accent, or someone with a South Asian accent … or someone receiving social assistance, you basically have a one in four chance of facing discrimination when you first inquire about renting an apartment."

People with mental illnesses, said Fraser, face an even greater challenge. "That discrimination rate jumps up to 35 per cent," he said.

The study, Sorry It's Rented: Measuring Discrimination in Toronto's Housing Market, followed the responses from nearly 1,000 landlords in the GTA who were approached by people posing as members most likely to face discrimination: a single mother with one child, a black single mother with one child, a single South Asian man, a single man with mental illness and a married woman on disability.

After volunteers posing as renters contacted landlords, another person with no discernible characteristics for discrimination contacted the same landlord.

"While we found significant levels of discrimination, still the majority of the landlords that we contacted didn't actually discriminate in our tests."

But, Fraser pointed out, the survey only tested the initial step in renting an apartment. "So our results probably underestimate what's happening out there."

Fraser said that another problem is landlords who demand a credit history from renters. "People who are new to the country, who are coming to Canada, they don't have credit, they don't have references and they're being turned down for that," he said.

CERA said the study is unique in Canada and it hopes the provincial government will use the results to fund more human rights cases based on housing discrimination.