'Rent is slavery': Meet the millennials living out of their vans

The term “downsizing” typically refers to greying baby boomers selling up the family home but for 27-year-old Tom O’Connell, it meant ditching the rental market and buying a van.

“It’s become a movement and it’s amazing, I think,” he says. “Maybe it’s a backlash to property prices and people feeling restricted to staying in one place.”

O’Connell, originally from Echuca in regional Victoria, is one of a modest number of millennials in Melbourne who have opted out of permanent housing and instead choose to live and, in some cases, work from a van.

He bought his Mercedes-Benz Sprinter second-hand 18 months ago when he returned from an overseas trip. He wanted to “simplify everything”. As an outdoor education guide, he often works away from Melbourne and believes living out of his van suits his lifestyle better than a rental house.

“But also, rent is slavery. Rent is so expensive, especially if you want to live where things are happening,” he says.

Instead, he has kitted out his van with a queen-size mattress, curtains and a fridge – there’s even pot plants inside. Usually he parks at friends’ places where he can use the cooking and bathroom facilities, but he has also slept in public parks.

“There’s so much beauty in moving around,” he says. “It’s sort of like a nomadic thing.”

Tom O’Connell (left) has a mattress, fridge and curtains in his van. Photo: Supplied

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What’s driving young people to take up the minimalist, moveable lifestyle is a mixture of factors – soaring rental prices in inner-urban areas, fierce competition to secure leases, an aversion to being “tied down” and the ability to quickly and easily relocate and travel.

Tony Keenan, head of Launch Housing, says finding a sharehouse can be expensive and competitive for young people, with dozens often vying for a single-room in suburbs close to the CBD.

He says young people opting to live in their vans is a further reflection of the decline of housing affordability. “Sleeping in a van might be okay while you’re travelling but I doubt it’s a sustainable long-term option, unless it’s in a caravan park.”

Unlike many rough sleepers, vandwellers (as they like to be called) say they are not forced to sleep in their vehicles out of dire financial or social hardship. For them, it isn’t a last resort, but rather a temporary, bohemian lifestyle choice that suits their budget.

But there is a long list of drawbacks to having no fixed address.

“It is so tricky. I think people romanticise [living in a van] a little bit,” O’Connell says. “There’s some hard realities for sure … like going to the toilet for instance.”

Basic daily tasks such as cooking and bathing can be problematic if facilities are not nearby. There is a general lack of privacy and space, and a van is typically far less secure than a house. There is the other glaringly obvious problem – it is, in many places, illegal to sleep in your car. But despite the disadvantages, young men and women in Melbourne are ditching the typical conventions of housing – and saving money doing it.

Outdoor education guide Tom O’Connell and his second-hand Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. Photo: Supplied

Living in a van isn’t a new or groundbreaking concept. Foreign backpackers and grey nomads have long hired or bought campervans to travel around the country, as have many people fed up with the 9-5 work culture who quit their jobs, hit the road and post dreamy photos on Instagram with the hashtag #vanlife.

But the travelling hippy stereotype does not fit Ben Mailo, who has swapped prayer flags for business textbooks. The 25-year-old entrepreneur and business coach moved to Melbourne last year and decided to live in his Mitsubishi Delica van while finding his feet in a new city.

“I purchased myself a van thinking I could live in that and spend all of the cash that I made instead of on rent straight back into growing my business,” he says. “The freedom of literally being able to drive anywhere and sleep there was amazing.”

But there were a few bumps in the road.

He recalls being woken at 7am to a knock on his window while he was parked beside a Fitzroy park. A ranger greeted him, told him to move on and issued him a $200 fine.

Later, when he was parked in a residential street in St Kilda, he found a council letter on his windscreen warning him camping was illegal throughout the area and he would be fined if he was caught sleeping in his van again.

There are no designated campervan or caravan facilities in the inner city (the closest is 11 kilometres outside the CBD). And a mobile home is not always welcome in the streets. It is not illegal to sleep in a car in Victoria, but many councils have either outlawed it or changed parking laws to prevent people parking long-term.

Warren Roberts, City of Stonnington chief executive, says sleeping in a vehicle overnight is considered camping and is an offence. “The penalty is a $200 on-the-spot fine,” he says.

Camping is also outlawed in the City of Port Phillip. Mayor Bernadene Voss says council officers take “an educative, rather than punitive, approach” when they become aware of camping activity. Fines are left to the discretion of the officer, she says.

After just over three months living in his van, Mailo moved into a unit in Southbank.

“It got to a point where it wasn’t really practical for me anymore,” he says. “For me, it was just a temporary thing to get me on my feet and it was a great motivator for me to work extremely hard to get things moving fast because it is uncomfortable, I’m not going to lie.

“It’s nice having somewhere to stretch out.”