Vancouver’s housing crisis has become so bad that one urban expert says it’s difficult to tell whether a questionable ad posted online purporting to offer $999/month van living with “perks” is actually an innovative rental opportunity or someone’s idea of a prank.
The “Unique Housing: Van Life!” ad appeared on Craigslist Friday, stating three separate furnished vans are available to rent in the parking lot of a West End rental building starting Dec. 1. The ad contained photos purporting to show two different van interiors.
The poster boasted they have “a special relationship with management to provide showers, washrooms, and sauna use 24/7 in the building with extra storage.”
“Living in a van allows you to live spontaneously,” stated the ad, which adds the vans have newly installed electric heat and are located in a “very safe alley”.
By Saturday, the ad had disappeared with a message that the posting was “flagged for removal” appearing in its place.
“I think it really illustrates the kind of desperation that some people are facing in the city of Vancouver,” SFU city program director Andy Yan told Global News in an interview Sat.
“When we have this difficulty of identifying the difference between parody and reality.”
Global News visited the building address listed on the ad and saw one van in the parkade, although its interior did not appear to match either of the photos from the original Craigslist post.
Neither the poster nor Terra Crest Property Management, which manages the Park Bay rental building responded to inquiries Saturday.
In a statement to Global News Monday, the City of Vancouver said the Zoning and Development bylaw prohibits the use of land for anything other than its intended purpose – and it has sent a property use inspector to investigate.
In this case, the city said, “trying to repurpose an owned or rented parking space for residential use” would be a bylaw violation.
“I think that it’s dealing with any number of perhaps legal issues – not only with land use but also with ICBC and insurance,” said Yan. “It’s ambiguous at least at this point.”
Van living is possible in city parks as long as Vancouver Park Board bylaws are followed.
Last month, RV dwellers who made the parking lot at Spanish Banks their home were given notices to leave or risk being towed because overnight parking is prohibited.
“It talks to a sizeable population that is really struggling to find affordable adequate housing,” Yan told Global News.
Aviation student Jacey Humchitt is now one of them, after his boat sank during the recent windstorm. Humchitt, who had been living on the boat, said he was anchored in False Creek temporarily while he searched for moorage all over the Lower Mainland.
“My boat was supposed to be my saviour in this rent crisis and unfortunately it just didn’t work out,” Humchitt said Thursday.
Humchitt said he is now navigating the insurance process and wants to ensure people his boat was not one of several derelict vessels in the Vancouver waterway.
“I took care of my boat, I loved my boat and this was a very unfortunate accident,” Humchitt told Global News.