Photo contributed
This is the first article in V.I.A's series looking at how people in the Lower Mainland are dealing with high housing costs.
“Vancouver is crazy expensive. The wages are not on par with real estate,” says one young woman that goes by her nickname, Hel.
She lived in a communal house in Vancouver for about three years and was “just lucky” to find and rent a condo in Burnaby. Hel is from the Czech Republic and lived in the Yukon when she first came to Canada. Food costs were higher in the Yukon “because they had to truck everything up” but the living expenses were lower.
On top of her full-time job, she models and is a part-time student that has turned her acrobatic hula hoop hobby into a side hustle by performing at events. “I think for a lot of people it's a struggle to live here. Unless they work in construction or IT it's hard for them to get ahead. It's just like paycheque to paycheque.”
The hardest part of sticking to her budget was cutting back on eating out,“because I'm always on the go and quite busy so it's harder for me to focus and be like: 'okay no, I'm going to cook at home and make sure it's going to be healthier and its going to be much cheaper.” She started making healthy smoothies to avoid eating out during the day and “didn't have any colds last winter for the first time in my life.”
She knows some people that are not conscious of what they can afford and go overboard “because they're used to living that way. It's the culture of social media. People want to show everything they are doing but can they really afford it or are they struggling?”
It would be helpful if there was more financial education for kids in high school in Canada, she says, because in Europe “we have better education in saving money and living within our means. Not living on credit cards.”
She has noticed that it is becoming harder and harder to find a place to live in Vancouver. Her friend is trying to move from Kitsilano to East Van but has been looking for a room in a collective house for two months now and is willing to pay $800.
“What I also don't understand - somebody was telling me that they rent out a one bedroom condo in Gastown for $3,000, 800 square feet, they get 30 people interested and rented it out in one day. I was like who can pay $3,000 for that?”
She understands that “it's hard to force landlords to be giving cheaper rent if they can make such good money. If I had a condo I would like to make money on it too by renting so it's kind of like a catch-22.”
Hel's long-term goal is to open a small health retreat on a plot of land she has bought in Nicaragua and spend the winter living there. In the summer she wants to spend time on the West Coast traveling in a camper van and visit her family in Europe for a couple months in the fall.
“That's my plan that's what I'm working towards. I mean, I love it here. It's beautiful, but I just don't think I can afford to settle down here. For now I just want to be here, work, make money and still enjoy what Vancouver has to offer. I'll do a lot of hiking and cheap hobbies.”
Hel has a blog where she writes about her experiences, interests and goals, which can be found here.
What's your living situation? Email melissa@vancouverisawesome.com to share your story.
