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It was another long Nanaimo city council meeting on Monday as our elected officials spent hours hearing from experts and local residents about homelessness and housing needs in the city.

The annual Point-In-Time Count from the United Way was presented showing that despite hundreds of units in supportive and temporary housing being built over the last number of years, the magnitude of homelessness isn’t getting better. 

Meanwhile, BC Housing told council that it was abandoning its plan to build a recovery-oriented housing project at the former Travellers Lodge and would have to find new housing for residents of the two temporary housing locations at 250 Terminal Ave. and 2020 Labieux Rd. as construction on permanent housing on one site and the city’s public works yard starts this year.  

At the same meeting, representatives from the Island Crisis Care Society and the Nanaimo Family Life Association made a presentation asking for support from the city to ask the province to move The Hub drop-in to the Island Health owned building at 250 Albert St.

You can read more about what happened in our council corner section below. 

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On the Island

Flooding, wildfires and earthquakes: Can the Comox Valley better prepare for disasters?

After being in an earthquake, Sue Pyper learned a lot. Now she and other local groups are sharing what they learned with neighbours — so everyone can be better prepared.

‘Evicted to nowhere’: Cowichan Valley residents push for permanent solution for unhoused locals

As a temporary winter shelter in Duncan closes its doors, unhoused residents are faced with few other options for housing.

Council corner

Monday’s city council meeting discussed a wide range of issues with a focus on homelessness, housing and support services. 

• Nanaimo’s Point in Time count for homelessness reported that there was a minimum of 577 people who were unhoused in Nanaimo on Dec. 3, 2025. However, due to methodological errors, more than 120 people were excluded from the count because volunteers failed to get consent or people who were precariously housed said that they had access to permanent shelter. 

  • Jon Rabeneck, project lead for the PIT Count, agreed with Coun. Tyler Brown that the decrease doesn’t mean that Nanaimo has turned a corner with homelessness and that homelessness is at “pretty much the same magnitude” as last year. 

• BC housing gave updates on the B.C. Trilateral Alignment Project and its HEART and HEARTH program.

  • Jennifer Fox, BC Housing’s regional director for Vancouver Island, said the plans to convert the former Travellers Lodge on Nelson Street into a supportive housing building that would have prioritized people who wanted to minimize their exposure to alcohol and substances has been cancelled due to the building’s condition. BC Housing representatives said they are committed to a similar project in Nanaimo. 

  • Fox said the temporary housing at 250 Terminal Ave. will also have to be removed in order to build permanent housing on the site instead of building the new housing on a different location on the property and then moving people into it from the temporary housing once it was complete. 

  • The temporary housing on Labieux Road will also be closed this year as the City works to expand its public works yard on that site. Fox said it will take six months to complete and that people will either be placed in other supportive housing or given rent supplements for market housing.

  • City councillors reiterated the need for dry recovery-based housing in Nanaimo and were told by BC Housing that they should collect and send data to the minister of housing that showed evidence for specific locations.   

  • Karen Kuwica, president of the Newcastle Community Association, argued that the proposed low-barrier supportive housing project that is planned for 250 Terminal Ave. should instead be a dry recovery-based housing project. 

• A motion by Coun. Janice Perrino to remove the development cost charge bylaws for not-for-profit rental housing from the consent agenda failed 4-4. A motion to defer it to the next council meeting passed with Councillors Hilary Eastmure and Sheryl Armstrong opposed.  

• A delegation from The Hub asked city council for a letter of support to BC Housing, to fund a permanent, 24/7, low‑barrier stabilization and housing navigation centre at 250 Albert St. 

  • The proposal would be called the Help, Uplift and Bridge (HUB) and would “integrate shelter services, basic needs supports, housing navigation, Indigenous‑led cultural services and health outreach in one coordinated location.”

  • It would also see the shower program funded by the city move from the Curling Club to the new location. 

  • The proposal would ask for $2.1 million in annual operating funding and $1.9 million in one-time capital funding for renovations and safety upgrades. 

  • The proponents are asking the province to redirect funding from the canceled Sparrow housing project at 1298 Nelson St.  

  • Violet Hayes, executive director of the Island Crisis Care Society said the organization talked with NDP MLA Sheila Malcomson who suggested that a proposal be made. 

  • Coun. Paul Manly said he was curious about Malcomson, who is B.C’s minister of poverty reduction, “suggesting that organizations come to us to provide a letter of support for a building that’s already owned by the province.” 

  • Council voted to direct staff to communicate with Island Health about the property, something that city manager Dale Lindsay said had been done informally. 

• Council agreed to a loan for a sewer twinning project for the RDN to increase flow capacity to the Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre near Neck Point Park and increase pumping capacity of the Departure Bay Pump station. 

• An application to rezone land owned near Cable Bay Trail as Industrial I4 “to allow a future industrial and agro-industrial development, and parkland dedication” was carried after a failed attempt to defer the motion until after a staff report on emissions-intensive industry was completed.
  

  • A separate vote to require staff to secure conditions for rezoning passed. Those conditions are:

    • A Community Amenity Contribution to designated 11.3 hectares of land as park land and a monetary contribution of $2.3 million with 60 per cent going towards parks and trail improvements and 40 per cent to the city’s housing legacy reserve fund. 

    • Restricting access to a single access point from Phoenix Way and no development or subdivision until access easements at various points have been addressed.

    • There would be no building on the property until sewer and water services are connected.

    • Any development would have to follow recommendations in a recent environmental assessment.  
      

• A motion by Coun. Brown for a staff report outlining changes to the council procedure bylaw that would ban motions stemming from delegations at the same meeting, unless council votes with a two-thirds majority to consider the matter immediately, passed 7-1 with Eastmure opposed. 

  • While it was not mentioned in the meeting, a recent motion following a delegation about the now cancelled Ben Bankas comedy show that asked The Port Theatre to review its booking policy would have been subject to this rule.

• Another motion by Brown for a staff report to amend the council procedure bylaw that would require any amendment to a motion for which notice has been given “must remain within the original intent and scope” of the motion passed 5-3 with Eastmure, Geselbracht and Manly opposed.

In other news

👉 CHLY 101.7FM’s Midcoast Morning has produced an in-depth episode focused on The Hub drop-in that is set to close its doors at the end of the month. The show features people who use The Hub’s services, service providers, local residents and Mayor Leonard Krog. You can listen to it here.

👉 Peace activists rallied in Nanaimo on Saturday calling attention to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, including Sudan which is facing a humanitarian crisis following two years of war. The Nanaimo News Bulletin has the story.

👉 The Nanaimo Astronomy Society will host Laura Buchanan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Victoria, this Thursday for a lecture on icy trans-Neptunian objects in the outer solar system. The meeting will take place on Thursday, March 26 at 7 p.m. at the Beban Park Social Centre. The Nanaimo News Bulletin has the story.

👉 A woman who killed an 85-year old woman with a jacked up pick-up truck in the parking lot of Woodgrove Centre pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention was fined $1,000 under the Motor Vehicle Act and a $150 victim surcharge. Nanaimo News Now has the story.

Have your say

📣 The Alternative Approval Process to extend the City of Nanaimo boundary to include Snuneymuxw reserve lands starts on Wednesday, March 11, and run until 4:30 p.m. on April 3. More information about the AAP can be found on the city’s Alternative Approval Process for Municipal Boundary Extension web page.

Community photo

The bridge at Colliery Dam Park is well known to local dog owners who use the off-leash area located there. Photo courtesy of Deborah Schurman.

Do you have a great photo from the community? Share it with us for a chance to be featured in an upcoming newsletter. We’d love to see Nanaimo through your lens.

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