Then you're looking in the wrong town or at the wrong job-offers. Conventional wisdom has it that you should spend at most 25% of monthly net income on housing.
Unfortunately for the majority of people in this city (or even province in general, BC is expensive), housing is often >50% of income. A one bedroom apartment where I live goes for about $800-1200 on average right now (and are in extremely short supply), and minimum wage is $10.50. There are not a lot of high paying jobs here either; a large number of people are forced to work multiple jobs.
Our entire province is struggling with a housing crisis right now. Things are complicated unfortunately and conventional wisdom doesn't always match up with reality.
When there is such a mismatch between housing costs and salary offers, look somewhere else. "It's not worthwhile to work here." is the information conveyed by those housing prices; those other people who you say are pulling crazy stunts to make the ends meet, are ignorant of that information at their own peril.