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Shawn Groff awakes each morning to find his body stuffed into a room the size of an overgrown hat box. And he blesses it for being so spacious.

Mr. Groff, 25, spent most of the last four years travelling the globe, living out of two suitcases.

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He landed in Vancouver, falling hard for the city. After years of making do on a tight budget, he saw no need to surrender to a one-bedroom unit with monstrously high rent.

So he rented a 260-square-foot apartment in Gastown’s Burns Block for $975 a month.

Mr. Groff is flourishing in his teensy home. He works as a bartender and cashier, takes courses at Langara College, bikes and hikes the North Shore mountains.

For him, it’s an ample space.

“I’m happy. I just have what I need,” says Mr. Groff. “I’m living here because I believe in having a smaller environmental footprint.”

His Burns building apartment is by no means the cheapest place Mr. Groff found to rent — he tracked down a space in Mount Pleasant for $850 a month — but it gives him a newly rebuilt apartment in a neighbourhood he loves.