Homeless in Vancouver

 This post was originally published in Heaven On Earth in March 2024 and republished in Journeys of Other Kinds in June 2026.

When people talk about homelessness in big cities, they often picture people living on the streets - people struggling with addiction, mental illness, or poverty. My recent experience returning to Vancouver showed me another side of homelessness: people who are working, studying, or waiting for opportunities, but who cannot find a place they can afford to live. Let me share what I experienced after returning to Vancouver, Canada two weeks ago.

For the first three days, I stayed at an AirBNB place in Burnaby and met a couple of Iranian visitors who were waiting for their work visas to be issued. One of them ended up staying in a shelter for men in New Westminster because he couldn't afford to pay $45 CAD/night for a bed at the AirBNB place for more than two weeks. I moved to a hostel in Jericho Beach just outside UBC on the fourth day. At check-in, I was informed that I could only stay up to 21 days on that property because I am a Canadian citizen. International tourists can stay a bit longer. In that area, there are students who sleep in cars at night and go to classes in UBC during the day. There are out-of-town Canadian citizens hopping from hostel to hostel every three weeks, paying on average $50 CAD/night for a dorm bed in a hostel.

It had been extremely stressful to find accommodation in Vancouver. A room in a house would cost $700–$1,400 CAD/month. The lower end of the rent spectrum would be a tiny closet/room with no windows, where the bathroom is shared by four or five people, and sometimes there is no shared kitchen. The upper end is a bigger room with an en-suite bathroom and a shared kitchen. Sometimes there is a price reduction if there is no access to public transportation. A 1-bedroom apartment costs no less than $2,500/month, provided that you have a good credit rating, pay stubs, and good references.

A common occurrence is that many property owners use their rooms to get underpaid services from their tenants. For example, ads offering a room in an old house in exchange for cleaning and maintenance work plus a rent payment of $350–$600/month are posted daily on Craigslist. I replied to those ads and confirmed that working no less than 60 hours per month was expected. Another common trick slumlords pull is renting out bedrooms to be shared by two or more female international students, with each tenant paying $550/month for a space on a mattress — that way a small room can yield more than renting out to one tenant per room. These slumlords target international students in particular because the students are not familiar with the Residential Tenancy Act of BC. Where is the humanity of these landlords?

When take-home income for a full-time worker at minimum wage is around $2,000/month, it is easy to fall through the housing cracks in Vancouver and join the ranks of the homeless in this relentless housing shortage crisis. Homelessness is more common among newcomers, students, seniors, and the working poor than most people could imagine. Cases like the Iranian visitor I met in Burnaby suggest Canada may be admitting newcomers faster than its housing supply can absorb them. Housing is a human right. Canada is far from being the dream country that it promotes itself to be in developing countries.

Homelessness is not always visible on the street. It can look like a student sleeping in a car, a newcomer staying in a shelter, or a worker moving from hostel to hostel because permanent housing is out of reach. The housing crisis has created a situation where even people who are trying to build a life in Canada can find themselves without a stable place to call home.