Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps says she does not benefit from an Airbnb rental suite in the house where she lives, despite social media posts to the contrary.
Helps stirred up a social media firestorm this week when she wrote on her blog that Victorians might consider offering to billet homeless people to help ease the housing crisis.
The idea was promoted successfully for workers who came to Victoria to help with the war effort during the Second World War, Helps said, and might be worth a look now.
The mayor was criticized for being hypocritical by the website Victoria BC TODAY, which said that Helps rents out a suite in her Fernwood home as an Airbnb short-term rental grossing $85 a night or potentially $2,550 a month.
Helps called the statement “a lie” and told the Times Colonist she contacted Victoria BC TODAY, run by Paul Seal, and asked that the post be taken down.
The site responded by stating that while Helps maintains she rents in the house, she is in a common-law relationship with her landlord, Marianne Unger. The website noted that Unger donated $10,000 to Helps’s 2011 election campaign and $9,981.32 (in-kind donations of graphic design and supplies) to her 2014 campaign.
“We contend that Helps is a financially contributing member of the household where her and Unger — as common-law partners — run the for-profit Airbnb,” the site said.
Again, not true, says the mayor, maintaining she is not in a common-law relationship with anyone. She called the statements “verging on libel” and “very problematic.”
“I think it’s very, very dangerous for people to be making assumptions about my relationship status,” she said. “I live alone in the upstairs of a duplex. I don’t have a common-law spouse, I don’t have a common-law partner and it is very, very dangerous to make assumptions.”
Helps said she asked the site to apologize and remove the post, but it has not done so.
“It is factually incorrect,” she said.
Asked if she ever was in a common-law relationship with Unger, Helps refused to answer. “I’m not going to answer a question about a personal relationship,” she said.
An Airbnb operates in a suite under the same roof but not in her portion of the house, she said.
For that reason, Helps said, she has recused herself from all council discussions regarding short-term vacation rentals. She is excusing herself from the discussions not because she has a pecuniary interest, but rather to avoid the perception of bias, she said.
Helps conceded that a suite being operated as an Airbnb in a residential area is contrary to zoning. “That would be taken up on a complaint-driven basis with the owner of the house,” she said. “I’m not the owner of the house. I’m not the owner of the Airbnb suite. I’m not the renter of the Airbnb suite. I have nothing to do with the Airbnb suite. I rent the upper portion of the duplex, and I live by myself.”
Helps said the owner of the website wrote her that he had no intention of taking down the item, which has been reposted several times.
