Lisa Helps is firing back at allegations she’s a hypocrite after suggesting homeowners with extra space could help relieve the city’s housing crunch by billeting the homeless.

The Victoria mayor shared an article she wrote on Facebook Tuesday calling on people living in large, mostly unoccupied homes to consider lending their spare rooms as a way of easing the city’s 0.5 per cent rental vacancy rate.

Since then, local website Victoria BC Today has sparked controversy online by posting an article titled “Mayor Lisa Helps rents out a suite in her own house – for $2,550 a month on Airbnb – but she asks you to take in the city’s homeless.”

The post alleges the mayor runs an Airbnb suite out of her home and provides a link to a listing at Helps’ home address, calling it “hypocritical."

In a follow-up post, the site claims Helps lives with a common-law partner and runs the suite with her. It also says her landlord, Marianne Unger, donated nearly $20,000 to her 2011 and 2014 election campaigns.

On Wednesday, Helps firmly rebutted the post saying she rents a room in the home, has no connection to the Airbnb.

“I want to set the record straight. I do not have an Airbnb, I do not have a common-law partner,” she told CTV News. “I live alone in the upstairs of a duplex, so the insinuation that I have a common-law partner and that I’m somehow party to this Airbnb and reaping the benefits from it, all of those things are not true.”

She said she won't elaborate on her relationship with the homeowner, but said the two live separately and do not share finances.

Replying to a comment on Facebook, Helps said that the post comes dangerously close to libel because of its false claims but didn’t say whether she would pursue legal action.

“I’ve asked them to take the post down. They’ve said they’re not going to. I will ask them again and I’ll go from there,” she said.

She admitted that Unger made graphic design contributions to her campaigns in 2011 and 2014, “but they were not financial contributions as was insinuated.”

CTV News reached out to the person who manages the Victoria BC Today website, and the operator said he stands by the story.

In the meantime, the mayor said a focus group on the issue of billeting the homeless is full.