By Daryl Major

Affordable housing study next initiative for City of Nanaimo

Oct 21, 2016 | 3:23 PM

NANAIMO – The City of Nanaimo has completed their low barrier housing project, but issues still remain.

At any time there’s an estimated 150 to 300 people classified as homeless in the city, according to Nanaimo’s social planner John Horn.

Horn says they’ve been able to maintain the status quo, which admittedly may not sound like good news.

“When you watch our sister cities around us, Victoria and Vancouver, you see that they’ve had significant increases in the number of homeless people in their streets. Whereas we’re sort of holding the line if you will,” said Horn. “Sad to say as it is, that’s a victory in this world. We’ve not seen the explosive growth in the homeless population that other cities have.”

Horn says for some of the homeless it’s an affordability issue. He says they’re going ahead with a thorough affordable housing strategy.

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“Including the needs of working people and young couples and all sort of folks who normally don’t fall under the radar of ‘oh they need a government program to support them,’” said Horn. “But affordability is an issue hitting lots and lots of people who are just regular working folks.”

Jim Spinelli is the executive director of the Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society. His group fully supports the city in doing a study, as they don’t have the resources to do one themselves.

“That’s not the business we’re in,” said Spinelli. “If the city’s able to do that and pull together some resources and pull together some plans we’re certainly happy to participate and to help the city as much as we can. But we really don’t have the resources to do it so it would be extremely helpful.”

Spinelli says the biggest issue is people that are living on fixed income. He says the province still gives people $375 for shelter, but says that’s not a realistic number.

“We need a lot more subsidized units. We could use several thousand of them,” said Spinelli. “But they’re not coming today. So we’re looking at working at other fronts to still see housing affordable. And again we support all kinds and I think for the next couple years we may not see that unless there’s a change of heart in the provincial government and they put some more subsidized housing out there”

Spinelli says he expects there should be an announcement coming soon with a list of accepted projects, including many on Vancouver Island. The city’s study is expected in the coming months.