Part 1
In January 2007 NOVA was contracted by The Norwegian State Housing Bank and The Directorate of Integration and Diversity to investigate the housing conditions of "secondary mowers" i.e. refugees who settled in Norway between 2000 and 2001 and who had left the municipality where they first were given permanent residence by the Norwegian immigration authorities. About half of the refugees move from the municipality where they were settled (Forgaard 2005m, Høydal 2006). "Secondary movers» do not have any legal rights to municipal support the first six months after they have moved and taken up residence in another municipality. They have to obtain housing without help from local authorities. Consequently it is interesting to find out how they manage to obtain a dwelling in a location of their own choice. This part of the investigation is based on qualitative interviews. Our aim is to give a better understanding of the refugees` housing conditions, housing preferences, housing career, motives for moving and how they maneuver in the housing market.

We were explicitly asked to interview those who had moved to towns or cities where housing is scarce and expensive, as well as those who relocated to places where the housing market was under less pressure. We were also supposed to interview refugees from different countries. In 2005 the relative small city of Fredrikstad (71.000 inhabitants in 2007) was the city besides Oslo who had the largest number of non-Western immigrants moving into town. This has led to high pressure on the housing market, and Fredrikstad was chosen as one location for our study. Drammen (60.000 inhabitants in 2007) has a large population of non-Western immigrants. The city presents itself as a community with a fairly large housing stock. Drammen was therefore chosen to represent a place with less pressure on the housing market.

There is a difference between the migrant populations according to their moving pattern. Our informants came from Somalia and Iraq. Many of the Somali "secondary movers" move to Oslo, while the Iraq immigrants more frequently leave their first municipality than other immigrant groups.

Due to a limited budget and some difficulties recruiting informants, our sample came to consist of tree Somali families and one Iraqi family who had moved to Fredrikstad and five Iraqi families who had moved to Drammen.

The first municipality in which the refugees are settled is not of their own choice. They do not have any connection to the place or the municipality in which they are accommodated. There are few if any reasons for them to stay. The refugees say they appreciate the provision they receive from the municipality, but gratitude is not sufficient for them to stay. Some of the informants were quite unhappy in the new surroundings. Usually there is more than one reason for the refugees to move.

The housing careers of the refugees in Drammen and Fredrikstad are quite complex. At first they settle in with friends or relatives in order to get acquainted with the housing market before they find a more suitable place to stay. But the first place they find on their own is seldom satisfactory according to size, standard or location.

There are few if any differences between the Somali or the Iraqi as to which strategies they apply to get hold of a house. The ethnic network is of great help, but other strategies are also applied. They read the newspaper and use Internet in order to obtain information about the housing market. But these strategies presuppose Norwegian language competence. Our nine refugee households had all together changed their housing condition 28 times in a period of 6 years. That is after they had moved away form the municipality they were first settled.

When we ask about their choice of location; the answer is some times simple. One woman from Iraq said: cousin. They want to be with their relatives and their ethnic network - to be with their own kind. Others may argue that better work expectation is the reason for moving to another place. If you are out of work, full employment is the goal you are striving for.

There is a great difference between the refugees as far as their situation on the housing market is concerned. Three out of the five Iraqi families in Drammen (no pressure on the housing marked) own the house they live in, while none of the families in Fredrikstad (more pressed housing marked) owned their living quarters. The housing market may explain this difference, but if we ask about our informants' employment situation we find that those who owned their living quarters were fully employed, and they lived in Drammen. One may say that a combination of adequate supply of housing and employment seems to be the prerequisites for being a house owner.

Part II
Every year a great number of refugees and asylum seekers arrive in Norway. Those who are permitted to stay will gradually be settled in a Norwegian municipality. After that the majority of the refugees soon move again from their place of residence, often not only out of the municipality but even out of the county or the part of the country where they first were settled. This part of the report deals with this so called secondary moving. We have chosen to study the five largest groups of refugees that arrived in Norway in 2000 and 2001, namely the refugees from Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Serbia/Montenegro. By using register data about all still living in Norway in 2005 we are studying their moving and housing careers.

Compared with the majority population of ethnic Norwegians this group of refugees are characterised by much more moving. In 2004 only a small minority still live in the same dwelling where they originally were settled. This share varies between 5.8 per cent among households from Somalia and 15.6 per cent among households from Iran.

In their first settling the refugees were widely spread all over Norway. At the beginning of 2002, 22.4 per cent were living in Oslo, 6.6 per cent in the county Akershus and 24.2 per cent in a municipality located somewhere else in the Eastern Norway. Only 5.4 per cent were settled on the south coast of Norway while 20.3 per cent came to West Norway. 7.4 per cent of the whole group got their first dwelling in one of the two counties of Trøndelag. 13 per cent settled in North Norway. The contribution from this group of refugees to keep up the population in North Norway turned out to be very brief. In the beginning of 2006 the percentage which still lived in North Norway was reduced to 5.2 per cent. Many of the movers found their way into East Norway. The portion of the group living in Oslo increased from 22.4 to 30.6 per cent, in Akershus from 6.6 to 9.2 per cent and in the rest of East Norway from 24.2 to 27.9 per cent. Two of the five groups were more often than the other three settled in Oslo, namely the Somalis and the Iranians. Until the beginning of 2006 there was a strong increase of the percentage living in Oslo among the Somalis, the Afghans and the Iraqis. The influx to Oslo was more modest among refugees from Serbia/Montenegro and Iran. The North Norway was strongly populated by refugees from Afghanistan (21.6 per cent), Somalia (19.2 per cent) and Iraq (18.8 per cent). The first of January 2006 these percentages had been reduced to 4.7, 5.6 and 6 per cent respectively.

Since almost all of the refugees we are studying were settled at the time of the 2001 census, this census contains data on almost all of them. In November 2001 almost 20 per cent already had become homeowners. We found the greatest share of homeowners among people from Serbia/ Montenegro. One third of these households had become owners. The lowest percentages were found among the Afghans and the Iranians with 12.6 and 14.1 per cent respectively. Somalis and Iraqis were placed in between with percentages of homeowners at 20.4 and 20.7 respectively. Somewhat unexpected the highest rate of homeownership was found about the refugees settled in Oslo. The lowest rate was found among refugees settled in West Norway, Trøndelag and North Norway.

Later the rate of home ownership has increased among those who came from Serbia/Montenegro. The same is true, but in a less degree among the Iranians. Among refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq the rate of homeownership first decreased and thereafter increased. Among the Somalis the rate of homeownership is constantly decreasing. The rate of homeownership seems to decrease with increasing moving. This is especially true among Somalis whose moving almost always is into tenancy.

The refugees live in much smaller dwellings than the ethnic Norwegians. The level of living surveys carried out among immigrants in Norway also show that immigrants accept to live in smaller dwellings than the rest of the population. Due to the quality of the house address register the data on number of rooms in the dwellings are not fully complete. For about one half of the dwellings refugees moved into, we lack data on numbers of rooms. But if our incomplete data are representative they show a clear pattern in the relationship between place in the dwelling and moving activity. In 2005 the ratio between the number of household members and number of rooms is worst among those who still live in the same dwelling they were settled in 2000 or 2001. The ratio is improved as the number of moves increase. This is the case for all five groups of refugees.

Sources of maintenance vary among the five groups. Among refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan more than 60 per cent received social assistance both in 2002 and 2004. The rate decreased very little from 2004 to 2004. Also among refugees from Iraq and Iran the majority received social assistance in 2002, but in both groups the rate had decreased to less than 50 per cent in 2004. The refugees from Serbia/Montenegro have the lowest rate of social assistance. In 2002 the rate was less than 30 per cent and had decreased further in 2004. In 2002 the share who had earned income was lowest among refugees Somalia and Iran with 52.3 and 53.1 per cent respectively. Refugees from Serbia/Montenegro and Iraq showed the highest rates with 66.9 and 65.5 per cent. Afghans were in between with earned income among 59.1 per cent of the households. In four of the groups there had been a process towards more similarity since the share with earned income in 2004 varied between 68.2 and 71.6 per cent. The Somalis represent the only exception with an unchanged share with earned income. The registered earned incomes are generally quite low. For the whole group the median earned income in 2004 was only 134 000 NOK. The median household income among refugees from Serbia/Montenegro was 215 000 NOK, followed by refugees from Iraq and Iran with 155 000 and 117 000 NOK respectively. The Afghans and Somalis had the lowest earned income with 97 000 and 93 000. Refugees from Serbia/Montenegro are also most often able to maintain solely on their earned income. In 2004 this is the situation for the majority. The share which is able to maintain through paid work is also increasing among Iraqis and Iranians. In 2004 this was the case for more than a third of these two groups. Among refugees from Afghanistan and Somalia a fifth maintained themselves through paid work solely. Since 2002 this share had increased among the Afghans and remained unchanged among the Somalis.