Over a month since the closure of Hub and the need for a new location is felt more than ever
Gagnon said now that the Hub is closed, she is concerned that those who came to see the Hub as a safe and warm space will fall through the cracks. (Lauryn Mackenzie/ CHLY 101.7fm)
It has been over a month since a year-round drop-in service hub closed in downtown Nanaimo, leaving many community services looking for new ways to keep those living on the street from falling through the cracks.
CHLY first reported on the then up-coming closure of the Hub back in March. It was a low-barrier space located at 55 Victoria Road that gave street-entrenched people access to essential services such as food, clothing and hygiene items, and connections with community resources.
Run seven days a week, the hub was operated by Island Crisis Care Society (ICCS) in partnership with Nanaimo Family Life Association (NFLA).
The daytime service run by ICCS was funded by the City of Nanaimo and supported by the federal government via United Way BC through the Reaching Home program. The nighttime service that was run by NFLA was funded by BC Housing.
This closure came as many residents in the nearby neighbourhood reported an increase in social disorder after the Hub had first opened. This led to Nanaimo City Council to vote in summer 2025 to end the city’s funding for the Hub’s daytime services.
Erika Gagnon, director of shelters and guest services for the Nanaimo Family Life Association, said NFLA, ICCS and the City of Nanaimo are still looking for a new location for the Hub.
“It’s been over six months since we've been looking for a location, visiting potential sites has slowed right down, not because we're not interested in finding a site, we absolutely still need a site, we still have every everyone invested in getting another Hub up and running, but we have looked at 30 properties so far, so we've kind of exhausted the inventory that is out there,” Gagnon said.
She said all three groups have been looking for a new location since well before the former Hub space closed but all the places they have looked at have not been appropriate due to location or the need for significant upgrades or alterations, something they cannot afford.
“As new properties come on the market, ourselves, ICCS, [and the City of Nanaimo], we all have a running email, we're all sending each other new real estate,” Gagnon said. “We have great real estate teams, there's just no other inventory out there that would be appropriate for us to look at at this time.”
Along with running the nighttime shelter at the Hub, NFLA also runs the year round Unitarian Shelter and the emergency winter shelter at Saint Peter's Church that also closed for the season at the end of March.
“For the people that are seeking shelter, it's not been going well. The shelters are full every night,” she said. “We're connecting with a lot of people because they're coming to our shelter, and of course, we're full. They are sleeping in doorways, they're sleeping in tents, they're sleeping in parks.”
To help support those who are now needing to find shelter elsewhere, Gagnon said they have been handing out as much survival equipment as they can during their shower program weekdays at Caledonia Park.
She said now that the Hub is closed, she is concerned that those who came to see the Hub as a safe and warm space will fall through the cracks.
“I think a lot of the community looked at [the Hub] as somewhere that someone who was addicted or unhoused could go and get a coffee, get a sandwich, a new pair of socks, but truly some somewhere like the Hub keeps people alive until hopefully they have a moment of clarity, or there is an opportunity from a medical organization to get them the help that they want.”
She said the loss of the Hub is the loss of a channel for service providers to connect with those in need.
“Yesterday I left the office here, and there was someone who needed some transportation passes and a very important message about a medical appointment. We went and hunted them down in the bushes, because we know this person, we know they need the services that were being offered, they were seeking out these services, but we had no way to connect with them,” she said. “That's what a lot of agencies are doing right now, because you're in this line of work because you want to help, but there's no way to connect with those people now.”
While also continuing to look for a new Hub location, Island Crisis Care Society has started looking at other ways they can support those living on the streets.
“We have secured a van, and so we're going to be offering mobile outreach. We're calling it our Mobile Hub, but we'll be offering all the same services that the hub provided,” said Ted Pahl, the new executive director for ICCS. “We're providing food, harm reduction supplies, clothing, looking to have opportunities to set up a tent and a table and do some of the work with some of the things we did like helping with documentation for things like appointments.”
He told CHLY that as the Mobile Hub is only starting this week, they are still working though where and when the van will be out, but for now their main focus is to service those downtown.
“What we looked at was there's a calendar of all the food that is being delivered throughout the city at various times, and there's some big gaps,” he said. “So what our focus point was, let's fill the holes first where there are no services being provided, and then also look for opportunities where we can partner with other folks.”
The Mobile Hub is funded by the Reaching Home program through United Way BC. While this new program will offer what was previously done at the Hub, Pahl said, a physical space will always be needed in this community.
“We got people that are in various pockets of just wherever they can find a little bit of shelter on the streets here,” Pahl said. “So what we'd like to have is somewhere where they could actually come inside, get whatever they need, whether it's food, whether it's materials, whether it's help with some phone charging, whatever. We just want to be able to provide somewhere for them to go.”
Back in March CHLY spoke with Sydney Robertson, chairperson of the South End Community Association, or SECA, about her concerns over what would happen in the neighbourhood when the Hub closed down.
SECA was among those who spoke to city council last summer to request the Hub be closed. As the closure approached however, she expressed concern that there was not an adequate plan in place for the neighbourhood to deal with the transition.
But now in May, Robertson told CHLY that since the closure of the Hub, SECA has noticed a positive change.
“A lot of it was pretty instantaneous for a lot of the area right around where the Hub was,” Robertson said. “It was night and day, as soon as it closed.”
She said they have seen the Nicol Street side of the building go quiet and the Victoria Side of the building return to the smaller amount of people who would frequent that area before the Hub first opened.
While Robertson said the change has been positive for the area and the residents in the neighbourhood are enjoying a bit of relief, she said they are still staying vigilant for what could happen over the next several months.
“We're really watching right now to make sure that no encampments start growing, because it's the season when it's easier for people to live rough,” Robertson said. “That can be okay when it's one or two people with a tent but when it turns into a bigger thing and a bigger thing and it becomes entrenched and that's really problematic.”
Robertson said SECA will continue to advocate for better services for those living on the street that are not concentrated in one area.
“We've been advocating to the province, as well as the City, that Nanaimo needs, I believe, right now at least three Hubs,” she said. “So folks can get services without all having to come to the same spot, not everybody wants to come to Nicol Street, and so that no one neighbourhood has to absorb too much.”
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.