A presentation by the Nanaimo Systems Planning Organization (SPO) to city council\u2019s governance and priorities committee meeting on Monday, stressed a dire need for multiple daytime warming centres in the city this winter, but noted there is no funding to operate them.<\/p>\n
The SPO\u2019s Executive Director John McCormick said the city has some soul-searching to do when it comes to funding warming centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that no one would disagree that warming centers are very important for Nanaimo,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the city is going to have to do some soul searching about how important this is and what they can afford to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCormick said that the city could also challenge the province to help fund warming centres, \u201cBut there's no way around the fact that we need warming centers and that there are costs associated with the operation of them that we can't avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SPO\u2019s report makes three recommendations; multiple warming centres spread across the city, for service agencies to align hours of operation, paid staff time in warming centres for cleaning and maintenance as well as non-emergency programming.<\/p>\n
The SPO\u2019s report concludes that \u201cThe lack of provincial funding for warming centre operations is a significant risk\u201d but argues the risks to people on the street should outweigh budgetary concerns.<\/p>\n
The SPO estimates it would cost $265,000 to run a warming centre from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week with four staff and a capacity of 20-25 visitors. It is estimated that about 300 people would use each centre over the course of a season for a total of 4,000 visits. The report says that two to three warming centres are needed, including one in north Nanaimo.<\/p>\n
Coun. Ian Thorpe says that the funding should not come from the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo funding has been identified for warming centers for the 2023-24 year,\u201d he said at the committee meeting. \u201cSo it seems to me we're nowhere unless we can identify some funding stream. And I hope I'm not hearing the implication that city taxpayers will be the intended sole source, or source at all, for the necessary funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
SPO board chair, and former city councillor, Don Bonner says that the city needs to take a leadership role by funding warming centres to ensure adequate services and then apply for funding from provincial and federal governments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what the city needs to do is decide, \u2018is this something that we want to take on,\u2019 and then recoup the money later on from the province and the feds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bonner said that instead of relying on a patchwork of four different programs for cold weather shelters, the city could run a single program covering all the needs and then go after provincial and federal funding for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat way, with a current budget that happens year after year, we can attract the people to do the job because they know though the income to pay for their wages will be there year after year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for BC Housing told CHLY by email that it is the city's responsibility to fund daytime warming centres.<\/p>\n
Jovanne Johnson, a director at Risebridge, operated a warming centre last winter at the Mid Island Community Connection Centre. She says that without consistent funding from the city it will be impossible to staff an emergency overnight shelter this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouncillor Thorpe had stated that he was hoping to hear that it wasn't the suggestion that city taxpayers would be paying for a warming center this winter,\u201d she told CHLY. \u201cI don't see how that's not the answer. I think that's our only answer we currently have. It's the only tangible thing that, you know, we could have at our fingertips right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said that if the city doesn\u2019t fund a warming centre, taxpayers will have to pay more for the demand on expensive emergency services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the fire risk and safety risk and human death toll is going to be a heck of a lot more expensive if we don't operate these types of services this winter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
According to the SPO report, Nanaimo\u2019s point in time count of people who are experiencing homelessness in 2023 was 514, up 20 per cent from the previous count in 2020. The report notes that this is an underestimate of Nanaimo\u2019s homeless population.<\/p>\n
Of the people surveyed 80 per cent said that they had \u201cno access to shelter of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report says that Nanaimo\u2019s emergency shelter capacity is about 100, but rises to 150 in the winter due to the opening of temporary emergency shelters.<\/p>\n
The SPO\u2019s report listed a number of possible locations across the city that could potentially be used for a warming centre, but the city\u2019s Chief Administrative Officer Dale Lindsay cautioned that the list of sites was not provided by the city and that the city had not reached out to property owners of those sites.<\/p>\n
Coun. Hilary Eastmure says that the city council needs to push the province to provide adequate funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe're definitely in a worse position than we were last year because we don't have any funding identified,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I think we need to ring the alarm on this as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eastmure moved that the city council draft a statement calling out the provincial and federal governments for not providing funding this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want us to be able to push it back and say that we need the funding to be able to do this,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have the operators and capacity to do it. But the dollars can't come out of our budget every single year, it's just not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coun. Erin Hemmens said that a statement should highlight the disparity in shelter spaces in Nanaimo compared to Vancouver.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompared to other communities, we have a significant number of people who are spending the night outside,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe we have 76 per cent of our unhoused population who don't have a place to sleep at night whereas Vancouver with a population of about 5,000 unhoused have just over 30 per cent spending the night outside so that is a significant injustice in how they're distributing the funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee unanimously passed a recommendation that city council release a statement about the lack of funding from the province.<\/p>\n
Listen to CHLY\u2019s report below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BC Housing says funding for daytime warming centres is the city\u2019s responsibility A presentation by the Nanaimo Systems Planning Organization (SPO) to city council\u2019s governance and priorities committee meeting on Monday, stressed a dire need for multiple daytime warming centres in the city this winter, but noted there is no funding to operate them. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":189383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[223,21655,225],"tags":[8924,488,28554,898,370,1098,31872,31873,11786],"radio":[240],"origine":[280,265,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189379"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190428,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189379\/revisions\/190428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189379"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=189379"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=189379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}