Tale of Two Cities: Incident response calls used to defend Discontent City in court
NANAIMO — The lawyer representing downtown Nanaimo’s expansive tent city told court it hasn’t led to an increase of crime and has actually reduced drug use among the cities homeless.
Lawyer Noah Ross cited the number of incident response calls 53 days before and after Discontent City was set up at 1 Port Dr. across from the busy Port Place Shopping Centre.
He explained to court there were 1125 incident responses in the roughly month-and-a-half before the tent city opened and there were 1123 incident responses after it opened.
Calls for medical aid were also reduced roughly 30 per cent across Nanaimo during the same time period after Discontent City opened.