A city divided: Homelessness and drug crisis fuel tensions in Nanaimo

As homelessness and addiction rates climb, Nanaimo grapples with a deepening divide over how to balance public safety and compassionate care

Benjamin Quinn, his nieces and their dog protest in front of Nanaimo City Hall on Sept. 3. (Photo Credit: Alexandra Keeler)

By Alexandra Keeler

This summer, the Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association urged city residents to come forward with information about assaults on the city’s homeless population. 

The volunteer-led residents' association was investigating claims that motorists were throwing objects at people experiencing homelessness, according to association director Collen Middleton.

“It’s not that I don’t want to believe that it’s happening — because I believe it. But there’s no evidence,” Middleton said. “It's most likely the outreach workers, other homeless individuals or people in the street drug community with access to vehicles, like drug runners.”

These alleged assaults on homeless individuals — and the controversy surrounding them — are reflective of a broader crisis in the B.C. community.

Nanaimo, a city of approximately 100,000 situated on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, has become a focal point in B.C.'s drug crisis. Already this year, the city has lost 68 residents to drug-related deaths. That represents five per cent of all opioid deaths in the province, despite the city being home to just two per cent of its population. 

The city’s drug issues are exacerbated by a deepening housing crisis, which is the result of a shortage of shelter beds, growing homeless population and closure of support services — all of which are fueling tensions in the community. 

'Speak up'

Middleton, who moved with his family to South Nanaimo from Calgary in July 2021, says he was shocked by all the issues he saw in his neighbourhood. “Within a month we had somebody overdose and die on the other side of our garage,” he said.

Middleton found drug paraphernalia — such as needles and dime bags with drug residue — in his kids' play area in their own backyard.

A break-in — where $5,000 worth of items were stolen from his garage — finally prompted Middleton to take action. He joined the local Facebook group Thieving Nanaimo, which has 25,000 members, and the board of the Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association.

In February, the association published a 52-page report detailing various incidents in the community, including theft, fires and property damage.

These incidents include regular break-ins and thefts at downtown businesses such as Fitz Ave Lingerie & Accessories Boutique, Red Shelf Decor and Fascinating Rhythm.

Fitz Ave Lingerie eventually installed 15 cameras and an alarm system that immediately notifies police of new incidents. It also keeps Naloxone kits on site to address drug use and overdoses in the store’s fitting rooms.

In 2023, community residents also raised concerns over the operation of an unsanctioned, "peer-supervised" drug consumption site on Nicol Street, which was run by the Nanaimo Network of Drug Users. The city labeled the property a "nuisance" but imposed no penalties. The site was ultimately shut down by its operators, who blamed the community. The operators faced no consequences for the nuisance designation, says Middleton.

"If the public didn't speak up ... I think we'd be in worse shape today," said Middleton.

'Bureaucratic hoops'

Mike Raey, a Nanaimo resident who has been intermittently homeless for the past two years, says the city is “not set up to help people who actually want the help.”

Raey, who struggles with alcohol addiction, currently stays in a shelter and keeps his belongings in a friend's nearby tent.

Access to basic amenities like food storage are crucial for people trying to recover from addiction and stay healthy, he says. He is critical of the bureaucratic “hoops” that unhoused individuals face when seeking housing assistance. 

“They have all these empty buildings — utilize them,” he said. “If they’re not up to code, bring them up to code.” 

But, in some respects, the city seems to be moving in the opposite direction. 

In August, it closed the Social Centre at 290 Bastion Street, a drop-in site that provided food, survival gear and a safe space to the unhoused and people struggling with addiction.

A frontline harm-reduction worker in Nanaimo, whom Canadian Affairs agreed not to name given the person’s concerns it could compromise future funding arrangements, says the centre was closed due to a lack of funding and resources to properly staff and operate the centre.

"I've watched service after service shut down, bed after bed,” said Benjamin Quinn, a trans Nanaimo resident who struggles with mental health issues and housing precarity. “The last holdout ... was the Social Centre.”

On Sept. 3, Quinn and his nieces gathered outside Nanaimo’s city hall to protest the closure of the Social Centre and other essential services.

In an interview with Canadian Affairs, Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog highlighted the financial constraints the city faces addressing issues of homelessness and addiction.

“Those are fundamental, essential provincial responsibilities,” Krog said. “We work pursuant to a memorandum with BC Housing,” he said, referring to the Crown corporation responsible for developing and administering subsidized housing in the province.

A January 2024 Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Nanaimo and B.C. government includes a commitment to create 100 new temporary housing spaces in the city. 

On June 28, BC Housing announced that city-owned land at 1030 Old Victoria Road would become the site of a new Nanaimo Navigation Centre. This modular building will feature approximately 60 private sleeping units for homeless individuals who have successfully stayed in shelters.

The project was narrowly approved by Nanaimo City Council in a 5-4 vote. Some councillors and community residents opposed it, citing concerns about inadequate mechanisms for fostering communication and accountability between housing operators and the community.

Krog says he supports the housing-first strategy in general, but believes certain housing solutions give rise to their own problems. 

“People destroy [houses] because some individuals need secure, involuntary care,” he said. “They attract drug dealers and create environments of violence, mayhem and human trafficking. They become a different kind of hellhole.”

"You need to deal with the hardest first,” he said. “They're never going to wake up one morning and say, ‘Oh, gee, I want to go to detox and get healthy.’ It's not going to happen."

Both the BC NDP and BC Conservative Party, which are competing for voter support in the upcoming election, have pledged to introduce involuntary care for people with severe addiction and mental health issues, Canadian Affairs reported last week.

The Nanimo Navigation Centre is slated to open in Spring 2025, alongside 78 supportive homes at a former Travellers Lodge hotel in Nanaimo, which has been leased by the B.C. government.

In the meantime, only 15 per cent of Nanaimo’s homeless population have somewhere to sleep at night. The city currently has 76 emergency shelter beds in total, while a 2023 survey found there were at least 515 homeless individuals — a 19 per cent increase from 2020 and nearly 200 per cent increase from 2016.

Krog insists the shortage of emergency shelters cannot be resolved at the municipal level. “We are helping, and we’ve put some money in,” he said. “But we don’t collect income tax.”

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This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.