Nanaimo City Council have asked staff to investigate a potential housing facility on City land, in a bid to make inroads to the region's homelessness challenges. (File Photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Alex Rawnsley

100 people

‘We’re gaining no ground:’ Nanaimo council investigating homeless housing facility

Feb 28, 2023 | 10:20 AM

NANAIMO — A split Council table has agreed to take another look at purpose-built housing for the homeless.

Coun. Erin Hemmens made the pitch during the Monday, Feb. 27 council meeting, calling for information by June 1 on how the City could house up to 100 people and provide basic shelter. It passed by a narrow 5-4 vote.

Hemmens said recent estimates suggest there are around 650 people currently homeless in Nanaimo for a variety of factors and the City is stuck just sending “strongly worded letters” to higher levels of government, begging for help.

“A lot of those folks are hiding in bushes, a lot of those folks are not facing active addiction. A lot of those folks are trying their best to avoid detection and they include seniors, families, they include youth and single women.”

She said her motion was vague by design, as she did not have a specific site or style of housing in mind.

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Hemmens was insistent she only wanted information to help guide future decision-making for both City projects, and more informed advocacy to provincial and federal organizations.

“A lot of our advocacy has been framed around ‘please help us, we’re drowning.’ I think this gives us a very specific, tangible something that we are interested in,” Hemmens added. “We’re investing historic amounts into emergency services, security services, support services and we’re gaining no ground.”

Under the proposal, a hypothetical facility on City-owned land would house 100 of the “easiest to house” residents in Nanaimo, according to Hemmens, with no active addiction or substance use challenges.

The plan split the Council table.

Coun. Sheryl Armstrong was staunchly against moving forward, suggesting all aspects of Hemmens’ pitch had been explored before and were not the responsibility of municipal government.

“We know that BC Housing is responsible for this, it’s their mandate. I have no issues working with them, they already know what land we have available, we’ve done this numerous times, it’s a repeat. We’ve already heard from staff they’re overcapacity. We’ve heard from service providers, there’s nobody available to run these.”

Other concerns raised by Council involved using City money to fund the hypothetical project, at least initially, could take away from infrastructure priorities or result in a much higher tax increase.

“If we can’t even deliver the roads, the sidewalks, the water, the sewage treatment plant without going to the taxpayer and saying ‘sorry, 7.3 per cent (tax increase)’, then how in the world are we going to be able to take on this problem even for 100 people,” coun. Janice Perrino added.

Mayor Leonard Krog remained fixed in his position the issue of homelessness, combined with mental health and addictions, is not the City’s to address, despite dealing with the consequences.

He said 100 beds for the easiest to house would not solve Nanaimo’s main problems, which primarily involve people Hemmens’ proposal would not cater to.

“We are continuing to allow people to suffer in our streets, this is not going to change it. I’m not prepared to send some kind of a signal that we’re doing something and that somehow this is going to attract provincial dollars. Damn it, if the provincial government isn’t aware of our problems now I don’t see how providing a report back to City Council is going to fix any of that.”

Support came from those eager to do something, anything, to move in the right direction.

Coun. Ben Geselbracht said there is a failure to address the homelessness and social disorder situation from all levels of government, and he supports a way of potentially finding solutions.

“We’re seeing growing tensions in our community and I think the majority of people don’t care whose responsibility it is, they want to see things improve. Right now we’ve got a big pit and more people are falling in it than coming out.”

Coun. Hilary Eastmure said she wants to see the information about what is available, and who might come to the table to run it.

“There are operators who could come in and do this kind of work who may not necessarily already be working in our community. I don’t want to give up on this problem, I know it’s a really big one so I at least would like to see the information on this.”

Hemmens, Eastmure, Geselbracht along with coun. Tyler Brown and coun. Paul Manly voted to move the request to staff forward.

Manly was a late addition to the meeting, joining toward the end of the discussion remotely from home.

Monday’s vote commits staff resources to looking at potential solutions and did not see any City funding or other money devoted to a project.

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