The City of Nanaimo is continuing with its efforts to see if there is a way that recreational vehicles can be used to help ease the shortage of affordable housing. A divided council passed a . . .
She suggested that her heritage was advantageous, given the diverse nature of the Commonwealth’s members. Her majesty is reputed to have a small number of Black ancestors. The best known may be Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), said to be a princess from the African branch of the Portuguese royal family. Queen Charlotte was an amateur botanist, a patron of the arts and a promoter of social welfare in Britain. Why do humans need to vilify those we perceive as being different from us? Racism, sexism, ageism, religious fanaticism and all the other isms hold us back from being all we could be.
The number of vehicle lanes will be reduced to two from four, and new transit islands are being built along Front Street, which parallels the waterfront from the Gabriola ferry terminal to Maffeo Sutton Park. “We want to double the amount of trips that have been taken by people walking and people using bikes by the year 2040,” Coun. Don Bonner said in an interview Friday. “We need to build the safe infrastructure for people to get from point A to point B on a bike. So that’s why we are trying to connect these partially connected bike lanes into a grid, so that people can get pretty well anywhere in Nanaimo on a bike.”
Initiatives include adding permanent supportive housing, affordable housing and transitional housing that supports people who are moving from homelessness to more secure housing. The plan includes community treatment, intensive case-management, rapid re-housing, prevention services and rent supports. The goal is for agencies and governments to work in partnership to roll out a comprehensive and co-ordinated plan for dedicating resources and services. The action plan came out of work carried out over 18 months by a health and housing task force involving a wide range of stakeholders. “We now have the groundwork for a very good partnership where we will create made-in-Nanaimo solutions,” Coun. Don Bonner, task force co-chair, told council.
‘It is desperate,” Violet Hayes, executive director of the Island Crisis Care Society, said Tuesday. “It’s really challenging. We regularly get calls from people that are asking us do we have any leads. It’s just almost impossible [for] people on fixed incomes. [It is] so hard to find a place.” The market is getting tighter as people move to Nanaimo, she said. The city estimated its 2019 population at 98,957 and anticipates reaching 106,254 by 2024. The vacancy rate in Nanaimo, which has 4,132 rental apartment units, has declined even though more than 400 new units were completed in 2020. Because demolitions and renovations took many of the existing rentals out of the total pool, the overall increase was only four per cent, or about 150 additional units, said Pershing Sun, a senior analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.