Daytime warming services are at risk of not being provided in Nanaimo this winter. (File Photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

scarce resources

Councillors and staff voice concerns about lack of shelter beds and funding in Nanaimo

Oct 23, 2023 | 6:14 PM

NANAIMO — With temperatures noticeably crisper and rain falling regularly, worries are rising in Nanaimo about a lack of local shelter spaces.

A conversation centered around no current daytime warming centre funding morphed into a wider discussion regarding a lack of overnight shelter beds during a lengthy City of Nanaimo committee level meeting on Monday, Oct. 23.

During the Governance and Priorities Committee meeting, City chief administrative officer Dale Lindsay said there’s “not nearly enough” space for the hundreds of unhoused people in Nanaimo to bed down overnight this winter.

“I do not agree with the suggestion that it’s the City’s responsibility to do that. It is clearly and historically always been a recognition that it’s provincial responsibility for housing and BC Housing specifically has a responsibility for shelter spaces and for overnight spaces,” Lindsay said.

He referenced a recent Union of BC Municipalities resolution requesting the province fund emergency shelter services.

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Lindsay noted their staff are currently facilitating venues and the necessary staff to provide periodic extreme weather shelter spaces, which are provincially funded.

City councillors are expected to endorse a statement at a future council meeting expressing its desire for increased provincial funding for shelter spaces and to apprise local service providers of the acute emergency shelter needs in Nanaimo.

Earlier in the afternoon, John McCormick, executive director of newly created Nanaimo Systems Planning Organization, presented recommendations to support warming centres locally.

Unlike last year, no funding is available for such services this time around.

“We need to make decisions right away because the clock is ticking on this and time really is running out to be able to make a decision about this,” McCormick said.

He co-authored a report which examined potential warming centre locations, budgets and mitigation strategies to reduce negative impacts on the neighbourhoods which the centres serve.

An 18 week-long seven day a week daytime warming centre operating during the winter would cost about $260,000, the report estimated.

Referencing climate change considerations leading to hot summers, McCormick suggested eventually establishing a year-round warming and cooling centre in Nanaimo.

“That would have really a profound impact on retaining qualified staff and it would mean that there’s a much more controlled and manageable process, not an emergency situation every year where we’re trying to find staff,” McCormick said.

With no funding on the table, Coun. Thorpe said these ideas realistically can’t get off the ground right now.

“It seems to be we’re at nowhere unless we can identify some funding stream, and I hope that I’m not hearing the implication that City taxpayers will be of the intended sole source, or source at all,” Thorpe said.

Late last year provincial money administered through the Union of BC Municipalities’ Strengthening Communities fund supported temporary warming centre services across B.C., including in Nanaimo.

In late November 2022 funding to back a pair of daytime warming centres throughout the winter were provided by Risebridge Society at its Prideaux St. location and 7-10 Club Society in partnership with St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Chapel St.

The City of Nanaimo briefly provided a pop-up daytime warming shelter at the Beban Park Social Centre last December.

Detailed information on existing shelter spaces, as well as food and hygiene services in Nanaimo can be found here.

Join the conversation. Submit your letter to NanaimoNewsNOW and be included on The Water Cooler, our letters to the editor feature.

Ian.holmes@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes