This was the scene at the NANDU emergency overdose prevention service site at 264 Nicol St. in Nanaimo on Monday, Feb. 6 as members of the volunteer-led initiative pack up. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

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Contentious Nanaimo harm reduction service closes, NANDU faces unclear future

Feb 6, 2023 | 4:34 PM

NANAIMO — A controversial drug consumption service on Nicol St. will officially be no more as of March 1.

The site, located at 264 Nicol St. is run by the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU), which has been the source of contention since first opening in early 2022, “simply ran out of funding”, according to coordinator Ann Livingston.

“It’s unfortunate that there can be… a narrative about how terrible NANDU was, but the fact was that it’s a record year for overdoses, it’s a desperate situation for people who use drugs in Nanaimo, and the volunteers at NANDU stepped up and did a heroic thing. Whatever the criticisms are, which are often quite vague, the fact was that they held it together.”

NANDU opened following $80,000 in provincial funding made available from the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, then under the guidance of Nanaimo MLA Sheila Malcolmson.

While no permits or public consultation arose prior to the service starting, NANDU operated legally under an emergency Ministerial Order enacted in 2016 due to elevated toxic drug deaths.

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It wasn’t long before neighbours of the site began expressing their concerns about criminal activity, intimidation from site users, social disorder and litter in the area.

In mid-January, Nanaimo city councillors declared a nuisance property designation upon the site’s operators, giving the City a fee structure to charge the landowners for use of City resources, such as bylaw or RCMP visits.

There was nobody around in the afternoon of Monday, Feb. 6, while several items at the NANDU site, including a large white tent, have been taken down.(Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

“We understand the nuisance property. The people at City Hall said they can’t shut us down, they can only just keep fining us. So we paid a few fines and our goal is to have the lot cleaned up and ready for the landlord on March 1,” said Livingston.

She said they paid about $3,000 in fines since the nuisance designation for incidents related to graffiti and fireworks, as well as a water leak issue.

Livingston said they’ll spend the month tearing down and cleaning up the site, while their organization will also spend this month holding meetings with some of their 400+ members to try and determine where they will go next.

“We never meant to open an overdose prevention site. We are a self-help model. The amount of funding we get is less than the wage for one bylaw officer. It’s a very small amount of funding. And we’ll continue on.”

She said they are hoping their application for another funding grant will be approved on March 1, but until then they are on the lookout for a new place to set up.

“People simply have nowhere to go. A lot of what is a social deterrent to health is networking, and people who use drugs who know a lot of other drug users have a broader social network. There’s some scientific (health) data that people who are isolated are more likely to die than people who have more social networks.”

An enhanced overdose prevention site on Albert St. was announced in early Dec. 2022 and opened its interim services before year’s end, with the site expected to be fully operational by late this year.

Seventy-four people died in Nanaimo from illicit drug toxicity in 2022, passing the old record of 56 deaths in 2017 and the 54 fatalities recorded in 2021.

NANDU project coordintaor Ann Livingston vowed remnants from a property they’re leasing will be cleaned up during the month of February. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow