A 53-year-old homeless man is dead in North Vancouver after a fire broke out in the shipping container he was apparently living in.
Police and fire crews arrived on scene behind a business in the 200-block of Lloyd Avenue at about 10 p.m. Tuesday night after someone reported seeing smoke coming from the container.
The man's body was discovered inside after they extinguished the blaze. Police said the man had been living in the container - which had a bed, chair, hotplate and a TV hooked up to a power connection - for possibly close to a year.
Cpl. Richard De Jong, spokesperson for the North Vancouver RCMP, said the man was known to police, who would often see him on the streets of North Vancouver. "He survived by panhandling, picking up bottles and scraping together what he could," said De Jong. He called the death tragic.
It appears the fire may have been caused by a candle that was left burning on a chair inside the container. De Jong said while the container likely provided a strong shelter away from the elements, it had no ventilation.
"Once the doors are closed it's a sealed unit," he said.
Smoke inhalation has been identified as the preliminary cause of death.
The container was owned by a local business United Power Ltd. and stored on the property near the West Vancouver Transit Depot. An employee at the business said nobody knew that someone was living in the container.
Geoff Bodnarek, an outreach worker with the Canadian Mental Health Association's North Vancouver office, said the man who died used to be a carpenter but wasn't able to work after he injured his back. Bodnarek said the man struggled with alcoholism and preferred not to live at the shelter or with roommates. "He'd much rather be on his own," said Bodnarek.
But he said social assistance of $610 a month doesn't go far on the North Shore, which the man considered home.
Recently, Bodnarek said he helped the man fill in forms to apply for a further disability payment.
He said he last saw the man at a Christmas party hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association for clients.
Bodnarek said he didn't know where the man was living. "He chose not to disclose that," he said.
Outreach workers put the number of homeless in North and West Vancouver at about 300, although official counts are lower.
David Newberry, community liaison worker at the Lookout Emergency Shelter, said the North Shore shelter is always full. Because affordable housing is so hard to find, shelter stays are getting longer, he said, which means the shelter has to turn more people away each year.
The B.C. Coroners Service will be conducting an autopsy on the man who died in Tuesday's fire, whose family in the Lower Mainland has been notified of the death.
Police did not release his name, at the request of the family.
jseyd@nsnews.com
