The Empty Condos Saga – Part 4:

 The Empty Condos Saga – Part 4: The Human Cost

Behind the glass towers and glossy sales brochures, there’s a Vancouver most people don’t see. Tent cities stretch across parks. Shelters overflow. Families double up in cramped apartments. Children grow up knowing what it means to be priced out.

Thousands of empty condos sit idle — symbols of wealth and speculation — while ordinary people sleep on sidewalks or in temporary housing. Indigenous communities, already facing historical dispossession, are hit hardest, as land and housing inequities are compounded by soaring market prices.

It’s a cruel irony: a city filled with luxurious, empty homes, yet neighbors cannot secure basic shelter. Every vacant unit is a missed opportunity for dignity and safety, a glaring emblem of policy failure and systemic inequity.

The human cost is more than numbers. It’s the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the impossible trade-offs families make just to survive. And it’s a moral contradiction for a city so wealthy: that prosperity exists next to deprivation, sometimes in the same neighborhood.

This is the Vancouver the real estate lobby doesn’t show you. The city council debates and government spin may frame the narrative, but the human stories cannot be ignored.

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✨ Next up in Part 5: Reckoning & What’s Next — taxes, tiny houses, and maybe a cheeky bike lane in front of Chip Wilson’s mansion.