Moving for the Vancouver questions

[archie]

My cousin is immigrating from South east Asia to Vancouver permanently and I am trying to get him settled in with his wife and 2 kids. I have a few questions for the locals in the area. Where is the best place to get a cheap short term lease on a car before they purchase? Do they have a car sharing program that they could join? Where is the best neighborhood for immigrants(ex.easy access to asian grocery stores)? Any good "extend stay" places before they select their new apartment? I might have a chance to pick them up at the airport and chauffer them around for the first week, so all this info will help me also. Thanks alot for the help!

 

[Vanny]

The Greater Vancouver area is very multicultural. Vancouver is a real mix of everyone. Richmond is majority Chinese. Surrey and Abbotsford Indian. Vietnamese are in East Vancouver and Burnaby. Africans in New West. Honesty, I wish we could get away from having all these seperate racial areas and become more integrated. Generally I think immigrants are welcome anywhere in the Greater Vancouver area.

 

[canucksafari]

They can try out the Carsharing Network (Co-op) IH8MUD Banner Advertising. Where they live depends a lot on where they plan to work. Commuting in Vancouver without rapid tranist - the Skytrain from the serounding cities is the pits but then again I hate commuting and did both Richmond to Vancouver and abbotsford to Richmond for years. Short term rental is usually a motel or a short term condo. Poperty values have come down a bit in the region but I don't think rentals have come down very much - if at all. Print yourself a map (http://www.vancouverprofile.com/images/gvrd_map.gif) and check out the ads in the Vancouver Sun and some of the community newspapers:

http://classified.van.net/classified/classified.nsf/search?openform

http://placead.bcclassified.com/newsite/index.php?sfid=1002

 

[Greg_B]

I've relatives who have come back to Canada after years in South Africa. Both stayed here for short stints (3-4 months) before moving into a Skytrain walking distance area. Outside the GVRD-Translink system it really is a pain to move around, unless you have your own vehicle. One of the above participates in the Carsharing Network, and they love it. Housing gets cheaper the farther east in the Valley you go, but the cost of transportation increases, if you have to head west on a regular basis.