A man in St. John’s rents office space, but he doesn’t have an office job.
He’s an electrician, driving from gig to gig all day. The office is where he sleeps at night, secretly, because he couldn’t afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the city. For two months during the frigid Newfoundland and Labrador winter, he lived in his truck. Then, in February, he found an office listed for $450 per month.
“I’m 100 per cent doing this clandestinely,” the 37-year-old told CBC News. “I basically have given up on finding anything else.”
The average asking price for rent in Canada hit an all-time high of $2,202 per month in May, according to a June report from listing website Rentals.ca.
The situation where a full-time worker still can’t find an affordable rental option is becoming more common, said Annie Hodgins, executive director of the Toronto-based non-profit Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
A recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities found that fewer than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of the country’s renters.
In October 2023, across the 35 metropolitan areas CBC News analyzed, only 1,400 bachelor or one-bedroom homes were vacant and located in neighbourhoods that full-time minimum-wage workers could afford.
The number of people who work full time and can’t afford rent is a “major concern,” Aled ab Iorwerth, deputy chief economist of the CMHC, told CBC News.
People will make sacrifices to ensure they can pay their rent, including cutting their budget for food and medication, Hodgins, of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, said.
And younger people may struggle to pay their student loans, or delay going back to school or starting families — all to make rent or because of lack of space, she said.
The original article contains 911 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Is there any rules against living in your office rental? In my mind, there’s always furniture to some degree in an office that can be slept on. You could probably get a shower and a change room installed. Most usually have a crude kitchen of sorts.
Unless someone comes in after hours and sees you snoozing, I think it’d be easy to keep up appearances.
most places (in the states) have zoning laws and specific laws about requirements that make a house livable. The combination usually precludes legally living in an office space even if the lease doesn’t specify.
It’s one of those things where if you just keep your head down you can get away with it but if you have parties and treat it like an actual residence and get complaints you’re likely to lose your lease.
knew a guy that did this. keep your head down, blend in, don’t be loud, everything plugged into headphones, no parties, nothing just go, chill out, sleep. he did it for over a year and never got caught.
I could be wrong, but I think the zoning laws tend to be much more focused on stopping people from working in residential areas than on living in commercial or industrial ones.
know someone who did this recently. lived in their “office” that they rented for like $300 a month for just over a year while they got back on their feet. It was easy. it was a pretty small building with a few offices in it, no onsite security, cleaners only cleaned the hallways and common area and only did it during the day. it was a building full of “start ups” so it wasn’t uncommon for people to be there late or even overnight so he just blended in and could come and go as he pleased. only issue naturally was showering but there was a goodlife across the street so he just got a membership to shower there.
I mean if you can find a similar space then I say why not? go for it. He said it was easier to rent that office space than it was to rent an apartment. didn’t need references, no credit check, no competition so you’re not gonna get out bid, literally just said that he’ll take it, paid $600, signed a lease, and that was it. moved in the same day.
I used to dream of doing this when I was younger and homeless. Sadly, I didn’t even have the resources for this. I eventually got on my feet, but it was hard.
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That’s nice if you can get away with it. When I earned too little to afford an apartment, I lived in a car.
I applaud this guy for making it work. If the system won’t work for you, go around it. Just be cautious cause it’ll fuck you back if it finds out.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The situation where a full-time worker still can’t find an affordable rental option is becoming more common, said Annie Hodgins, executive director of the Toronto-based non-profit Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
A recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities found that fewer than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of the country’s renters.
In October 2023, across the 35 metropolitan areas CBC News analyzed, only 1,400 bachelor or one-bedroom homes were vacant and located in neighbourhoods that full-time minimum-wage workers could afford.
The number of people who work full time and can’t afford rent is a “major concern,” Aled ab Iorwerth, deputy chief economist of the CMHC, told CBC News.
People will make sacrifices to ensure they can pay their rent, including cutting their budget for food and medication, Hodgins, of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, said.
And younger people may struggle to pay their student loans, or delay going back to school or starting families — all to make rent or because of lack of space, she said.
The original article contains 911 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Is there any rules against living in your office rental? In my mind, there’s always furniture to some degree in an office that can be slept on. You could probably get a shower and a change room installed. Most usually have a crude kitchen of sorts.
Unless someone comes in after hours and sees you snoozing, I think it’d be easy to keep up appearances.
most places (in the states) have zoning laws and specific laws about requirements that make a house livable. The combination usually precludes legally living in an office space even if the lease doesn’t specify.
It’s one of those things where if you just keep your head down you can get away with it but if you have parties and treat it like an actual residence and get complaints you’re likely to lose your lease.
knew a guy that did this. keep your head down, blend in, don’t be loud, everything plugged into headphones, no parties, nothing just go, chill out, sleep. he did it for over a year and never got caught.
I could be wrong, but I think the zoning laws tend to be much more focused on stopping people from working in residential areas than on living in commercial or industrial ones.
Mostly, but there are also higher egress standards for bedrooms that pretty much any other room.
Might also be some fire issues with kitchens. Or other things I don’t know.
Everything is probably doable within office zoning, but there is no point of its just but as an office.
Ah, good point. I was thinking about zoning codes, not building codes.
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know someone who did this recently. lived in their “office” that they rented for like $300 a month for just over a year while they got back on their feet. It was easy. it was a pretty small building with a few offices in it, no onsite security, cleaners only cleaned the hallways and common area and only did it during the day. it was a building full of “start ups” so it wasn’t uncommon for people to be there late or even overnight so he just blended in and could come and go as he pleased. only issue naturally was showering but there was a goodlife across the street so he just got a membership to shower there.
I mean if you can find a similar space then I say why not? go for it. He said it was easier to rent that office space than it was to rent an apartment. didn’t need references, no credit check, no competition so you’re not gonna get out bid, literally just said that he’ll take it, paid $600, signed a lease, and that was it. moved in the same day.
Most office space does require a credit check, deposit, and some require your business license and fictitious name statement.
I used to dream of doing this when I was younger and homeless. Sadly, I didn’t even have the resources for this. I eventually got on my feet, but it was hard.