'Well, you gotta have a home': Inside the private lives of van dwellers

A bearded, white-haired man in his late sixties puffs on a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the open driver's side window of his red Chevrolet semi-camperized van.

Maurice Bilovus is parked at Vancouver's Spanish Banks, the front of thevan facing the beach. Cyclists and joggers pass by and in the distance,English Bay is littered with freighters.Bilovusseems to be just enjoying the view.

Behind the van's curtains andtinted windows, there's a bench seat being used as a bed. Therest of thevan is filled with luggage,boxes, snacks, andan unopened piece of agedcheddar cheese.

"Well, you gotta have a home," he said."I'm like a homeless person, but I've got a little homeand there's a lot of homeless people around. Every year, there's more. It's not only me, there's a lot of people who do the same thing."

Bilovushas been living in a vehicle for six years, though he spends half of each year in Mexico, where the winters are warm and the rent is much cheaper than in Vancouver.

"On a $1,400 pensionand $1,200 for an apartment, what the hell is left after that?You know ... it's too expensive for me to live here."

Bilovus, a calm, friendly man, struggles with a swollen foot. His van isn't outfitted with a stove and he says he often gets by on inexpensiveMcDonald's breakfasts.

He has a few favourite spots around the beach where he likes to park for the night. Occasionally, he hits the roador spends a week staying with friends an hour away in Maple Ridge.

"It's nice they're old friends and they say, 'Hey, why don't you drop over for a few days, or something.'It's very heartwarming," saidBilovus, who doesn't have any family.

Elliot C. Way, a Vancouver musician who fronts arevivalrock and roll band and DJs under the name DJ Dirty Bird, also relies on friends to make van dwelling a viable lifestyle.

Though unlikeBilovus, Way is frozen in 1972, despite being born 13 years later. His van is a green "boogie van"he calls Medusa.

The customizedGMCis outfitted with multi-colouredshag carpeting on the floor, walls, and ceiling.

"They call it the roach coach, because if you drop a roach in it, you'll never find it," Way said, as he perchedin Medusa's sliding doorway. He parked next to an East Vancouver park, wherethe sound of children playing in the nearby waterpark can be heard across the field.

"Not everyone who lives in a shag-van with a small little bubble window is, in any regard, a predator. In fact, they're probably the sweetest, nicest laid-back people ever," he said. "They live in a van it's pretty chill."

Way has filled his van with vintage decorations, a box of classic rock records and a collection of 8-tracks. The van only has a radio and 8-track player, so he uses an adaptor to insert cassettes, and then a second adaptor to plug in hiscellphone.

Earlier this year, Waywas rentingin an East Vancouver home, but he hit the road and travelled south when his landlord got permits to redevelop.

"I came back and couldn't find anything on Craigslist or Kijiji that I was interested in or could afford if I was interested in it," Way said.

Like Bilovus, Way plans to ride out the summer and then go south again when the weather gets cold "just chase the sun around," he said.

While Bilovus and Way sleep in regular-sized vans with limited facilities, another style of vandweller populates a few hot spots in Vancouver.

The upscalePoint Grey neighbourhood near Jericho Beach is one suchpopular spot. The people staying there say they seem to be tolerated by the bylaw enforcement officers who are known to target people living in RVswith $50 to $100 fines.

Kim O'Connell and his partner can often be found there. He's a retiree who recently bought an older RVwith a leaky roof and took the ferry over from Nanaimo, B.C.

"I'm just looking forward to a little bit of sunshine today and I'mgonna head down to the beach pretty soon and spend the day on the beach," he said, sitting on the vehicle's stoop.

"It's all about enjoyment for me," he said. "I worked my 40 years, I just want to enjoy the rest of my life and this is how I'm doing it."

"I think the trend is that people don't want topay rent. People want tojust enjoy, rather than having a mortgage and having to mow the lawn every week."

O'Connell's RVhas a tarp draped over the roof, but it's cleanand seems quite comfortable. He and his partner, who has a regular job in the city, enjoy the luxuries of a fridge, stove,bathtub, andtoilet.

"I'm sure there's things that you don't have, things that you give up ... but it's good for me, I like it."

Parked behind O'Connell was acompletely differentsort of van dweller. Camillo Huck is a 21-year-old German traveller who calls Toronto home, sort of.

He's been on the road since he struck out from Ontario earlier this year. He drove his white Ford Aerostarto southern California and then north up the West Coast. Huck hadbeen in Vancouver for a couple weeks andwas in the process of selling the van to move into a camper, and plannedto continue on to Alaska.

"You realize that you have such a small space I mean if you look at my car, you can barely fit two people in it ... but that's all you need," Huck said.

"For parking, Vancouver especially is actually kind of cool. Because you have spots like this one where you can stay 24 hours and don't have to pay. In the States especially in the big cities you have to pay and you can't stay there overnight," he said.

Danielle Chabassoland MatDubare alsoenjoying the nomadic lifestyle that a van offers. They're fans of the "living small"movement andbroadcast their travels online with regular YouTube videos and blog posts.

Last summerthe couple roamed around B.C. before gettinga house-sittingstint through the cold months. This summer they're staying out East, travelling through Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

"The difference is that nobody is doing it out East," saidDub. "There's almost nobody and we thought it seemed very popular to us in the West."

Chabassol,who's able to get work online she can do from anywhere, agreed.

"Everywhere we went in B.C.there were 'no overnight parking' signs and camper vans everywhere," she said."It seems like it's a huge thing, and it's probably because of the weather and probably I don't know, everyone out there seems a little bit more open-minded."

Classic-rocker Way has also noticed B.C. tends to attract vandwellers. He believes it's because of thehigh cost of housing and the rapid redevelopment of older houses, as well as the mild weather.

"We are the California of Canada, and it's the only place you can really do it year-round or mostly year-round and survive living in a van," he said.

For people like Bilovus and O'Connell, living in a van is a retirement decisionthey plan to stick with as long as it works, but others, like Huck, can see an end in sight, and sometimes long for a regular home.

"If your home is moving, you never settle down.Sometimes you're just driving for miles and miles and miles, and you just want to be somewhere," Huck said. "There's a reason why we build houses."