From Sarah Pump, PAN Executive Director
Currently, there is only one funded daytime warming center for unhoused people in Nanaimo, the Drop-In Center located at 55 Victoria Road and run by Island Crisis Care Society. Their capacity is 20 people at a time.
Estimates of the number of unhoused people in Nanaimo range between 800 and 1000.
During this cold spell, the City of Nanaimo is listing our public library locations as options for unhoused people to warm up.
I worked as a librarian in an urban public library in Ontario until I became too sick to work 4 years ago. At that point, the substance use and homelessness crisis had already taken hold. The location where I worked was a few blocks away from the local homeless shelter. We were the default daytime bathroom, hang out, computer access point, and warming center for a huge chunk of unhoused people in the community. I have a lot of stories.
In library school, I took courses about the Dewey decimal system, collection management, and young adult literature.
You know what I NEVER studied? What wasn’t covered for even a single second?
*Replacing ID
*Substance Use Counselling
*Navigating trauma
*Wound care and basic first aid
*De-escalation techniques
*Biohazard handling
*Locating available shelter beds
While working in a public library on the front line of the substance and housing crisis, I did my best to support all of our library regulars. I adored many of the unhoused people that we hosted and worried about them when we didn’t see them. But I can think of countless times our unhoused clients needed far more than I was equipped to offer.
Libraries are valuable community resources for literacy, social gatherings, cultural experiences, and access to technology. I’m grateful that they welcome everyone.
However, they are NOT warming centers. They are not equipped to offer what unhoused people need. Our libraries don’t have closets of free warm clothing and footwear. They don’t offer complimentary warm drinks and snacks. Libraries don’t have laundry facilities available for those who need them. They provide zero free condoms, socks, or naloxone kits. In addition, warming centers offer an opportunity for connection with staff who can support people in crisis to take steps forward.
When our city suggests that our public libraries are an option for warming during cold spells like the current one, they are not only short changing unhoused people of the services that they need and deserve, they are diverting library staff from the work that they have been trained and hired to do in our community.
Stop using public libraries as a solution to the lack of warming centers in Nanaimo and fund more purpose-built services for our unhoused neighbours.
Poverty Advocacy Nanaimo 