City council to approve $350K to tackle homelessness, including drop-in centre
NANAIMO — A significant amount of money was pledged in hopes of calming disorder caused by Nanaimo’s homelessness crisis.
City councillors passed a motion recommending approval of a $350,000 package of initiatives during Wednesday’s finance and audit committee meeting. Included in the spend is $100,000 to begin work on establishing a daytime drop-in centre, considered a critical part of the solution.
Social planner John Horn said the centre, which would be open for eight hours a day, seven days a week, would hopefully offer services, programs and amenities to make a real and significant impact on curbing homelessness in the Harbour City.
“Many of the items we bring forward are tinkering at the edges, trying to address the impact of things which have happened around homelessness. We’re not fundamentally getting at the issue of how many people do we have on our streets. We have to really fundamentally change the feel of our streets.”