By Dominic Abassi

Nanaimo advocacy society focused on raising profile of work with ‘most vulnerable’

Jan 28, 2018 | 9:49 PM

NANAIMO — Deanna Ward speaks passionately and proudly as she shares a story about a couple her organization steered towards stable housing and a methadone program.

When the pair came to the Nanaimo Citizen Advocacy Association they had lost their income assistance, been evicted and lost access to methadone.

“It took our skilled advocate two months to gather the documents…I know for 100 per cent they would be living on the street and using heroin if they didn’t come in here.”

The NCAA was in front of City Council recently, asking for help to stave off a desperate funding shortfall. Last Monday night, Council approved $10,000 from its contingency fund to help keep the doors of the general advocacy program open.

Thanks to the City’s funding, a grant and personal donations, Ward says it’s “crisis averted” for now and their $20,000 shortfall for this year is mostly covered.

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Now there’s a new challenge to tackle — boosting awareness of the value they provide.

Ward, NCAA executive director, said the volunteer-based non-profit society has a history of working “humbly and quietly” over the last 43 years, helping more than 2,200 people in the community every year.

“We are an agency that helps the most vulnerable and disenfranchised people in Nanaimo. Most of our clients have a disability,” Ward said. “People that are coming to us don’t always have the capacity to problem solve.”

She said their most popular service is helping people file disability status applications. Services are free and can be accessed by anyone.

When they were forced to turn to the community for donations, Ward was amazed how few people knew what they did. That lack of awareness served as a hurdle to fundraising efforts.

“We quite literally save this City hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs related to services…What is the cost to having someone on the streets using heroin compared to having stable housing and moving forward in their lives?”

Ward said the increase in Nanaimo’s homeless population and the affordable housing crisis created more demand for their services. At the same time, issues are more complex and people often require multiple visits to solve a problem.

“We recognize this need isn’t going away, I think it’s going to continue to increase. So not only do we want to find what we need for next year, we want to find even more so we can expand our services.”

Ward was confident they would raise the roughly $1,000 needed to reach their immediate fundraising goal. However, she predicted another challenging financial year ahead.

“The people who are doing this work are humble about it…They just want to help people. We really need to spend more time letting people know the importance of what we’re doing.”

You can learn more about NCAA and links to donate at their website.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi