New group ‘laser-focused’ on providing housing to unhoused Nanaimo population

“Helping us as a community to understand the breadth and depth of the challenges we’re facing and the best ways to go about trying to address those in an effective and meaningful way.”

McCormick has nearly three decades of experience in community development, including being the previous executive director of Connective, formally the Nanaimo-based branch of the John Howard Society.

The Nanaimo SPO will work with local stakeholder organizations and community members to dig down to the root of those issues and provide all levels of government information on how to make meaningful change.

McCormick said in the past, there was no organization committed to this issue, as all the community agencies dealing with the other issues surrounding homeless, like addictions and mental health, are engaged and busy running their own programs.

“The City really didn’t have a presence in housing, so we really had a gap in the community on how to deal with this.”

He said the housing issue is a complicated one without a single, simple solution.

They’ll also be working with other communities across the province with similar issues to help strengthen their case to the federal and provincial government about why Nanaimo has such a great need for this kind of support.

“We talk about a heterogeneous population, which means you’re talking about age ranges from youth to seniors, and working poor as well as people who are dealing with mental health issues or addiction issues. It’s sort of broad spectrum in that regard, and we’ll look for opportunities wherever they come about to try and house people.”

McCormick acknowledges this project has a long-term scope, and they want to get momentum going in order to eventually get to the point where anybody who needs a home can easily get one.

“It’s not something we are going to solve in the next year. It’s taken us a long time to get to this place and it’s going to take quite a while to work our way out of it. We recognize that this is not something we’re going to be able to solve today.”

He said their job is not to take away from the work other local agencies are doing but to provide them with more tools they need.

Admitting they have a lot of work ahead of them, McCormick stresses the need for Nanaimo to be identified as a community that needs additional housing support as quick as possible, otherwise, the situation is not going to improve.

“It’s going to be multi-faceted, and it’ll involve a range of interventions and efforts to bring the resources to Nanaimo, and also to work as a community to collectively demand for more. It’s not just a letter-writing campaign.”

He said what makes this different from similar initiatives in the past, is they now have the capacity to respond to the housing crisis in a direct way, and we can’t expect the justice system or community agencies to do all the work on their own.

“Identify the solutions that are being identified in other communities across the country, look for funding and resources to advocate for Nanaimo to make the argument that Nanaimo is in a very unique situation…compared to every other community, medium-sized to large in Canada.”

Along with McCormick, nine others will make up the board, including former Nanaimo city councillor Don Bonner as chair, and current Nanaimo councillor Tyler Brown.

It also includes Snuneymuxw First Nation councillor Emmy Mason, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association (housing sector) Jason Harrison, regional medical health officer Dr. Sandra Allision, and executive director of the Island Crisis Care Society Violet Hayes.

The group will meet over the next several months with community groups and work on the best path forward.

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by Jordan Davidson

New group ‘laser-focused’ on providing housing to unhoused Nanaimo population

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