A proposal to fund a $1 million security component to downtown Nanaimo will be on council's agenda in an upcoming discussion. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Spencer Sterritt

new attention

Nanaimo councillor trying to bring provincial eyes to downtown Nanaimo problems

Apr 13, 2021 | 5:25 AM

NANAIMO — A Nanaimo councillor wants to find new ways to draw provincial attention to the situation unfolding on Nanaimo streets.

Coun. Erin Hemmens during a meeting at the council table on Monday, April 12 said she’s motivated to bring new light to the situation when hearing about how Nanaimo RCMP are struggling to handle the situation.

“I’m very interested in communicating to the provincial government we have a police force doing social work and the resources we’re trying to connect them to actually don’t exist,” she said.

“We don’t actually know how to solve this. I don’t even at this point know that the provincial government does.”

During the meeting, Nanaimo RCMP’s acting superintendent Lisa Fletcher told councillors approximately 400 mental health calls are responded to each month.

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“The challenge is we can get the people to the provincial care they need but we have no control over how long they stay. Many of the people we’ve brought to care are now back in the community with very significant challenges.”

Fletcher said the strain of repeated incidents with the same character leads to deteriorating outcomes for everyone.

“It’s challenging to do it once, it’s harder to do it three, four and five times with the same individual. We start losing trust and we start really building unfortunate circumstances.”

Part of Monday’s meeting included an overview of efforts to curb social disorder in downtown Nanaimo.

At the time, manager of community safety Dave LaBerge indicated he’d be coming forward to council with a $1.4 million ask in the 2022 budget for enhanced security downtown and a dedicated sanitation crew.

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spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @SpencerSterritt