New manager to focus on Nanaimo’s emerging public safety crisis
NANAIMO — The City of Nanaimo is looking for some leadership in a department that is becoming less about parking tickets and more about frontline interactions with the surging homeless population.
The City’s human resources department said the new position of manager of community safety will focus mainly on overseeing bylaw staff, with a directive to improve community safety and security. A job posting on the City’s website said the manager will play “a significant role in downtown revitalization.”
Karen Fry, Nanaimo’s fire chief and acting director of public safety, told NanaimoNewsNOW the role of a bylaw officer has shifted dramatically, no longer focusing on complaint-driven issues and parking regulation.
“These people now are spending a lot of their time dealing with the people that are aggressively panhandling or sleeping on the streets…And then as well as the squatter camps and the distress they’re causing to the parks they’re living in due to a lack of housing.”