{"id":502493,"date":"2026-02-27T06:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502493\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T06:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:29:09","slug":"supportive-housing-ceo-says-it-has-no-where-to-move-in-nanaimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502493\/","title":{"rendered":"Supportive housing CEO says it has no where to move in Nanaimo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of Pacifica Housing says there\u2019s no alternative supportive housing location for those living at Nikao on Labieux Road in Nanaimo.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, the City of Nanaimo said it would be giving a six months notice of eviction to the supportive housing operator as part of its plan to build two new public works buildings.<\/p>\n

But the operator says she won\u2019t stand for the supportive housing to close without a place for its 66 residents to go.<\/p>\n

For the past two years, Tony Shirley has called Nikao, the supportive housing facility on Labeiux Road in Nanaimo, home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the make-or-break point. You have somewhere to go, you don\u2019t have to worry that night. You know you\u2019re going to have a roof over your head,\u201d said Tony Shirley on how important Nikao is to him and the others living there.<\/p>\n

For years before coming to Nikao, Shirley was living on the streets. He says he\u2019s seen people turning their lives around here.<\/p>\n

Watch the full story in the video below:<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these guys, as I said, got jobs and stuff now, and they haven\u2019t had jobs for a long time. Some of these guys are trying really hard. Some of them aren\u2019t, but big deal, there\u2019s always a weed somewhere,\u201d said Shirley.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the City of Nanaimo said it would be serving notice to evict the operator and BC Housing from its property<\/a>, as it now needs it for its two new public works buildings<\/p>\n

\u201cThe space that the housing currently occupies is going to be needed for those functions to support construction, so we call it a construction lay down area where you put construction trailers, materials, and you need to have a location for inventory on site and that certainly is the ideal spot,\u201d said Bill Sims, the City of Nanaimo\u2019s general manager of engineering and public works.<\/p>\n

Nanaimo city staff told council on Monday that a parking lot is planned for where the supportive housing building currently sits.<\/p>\n

\"\"The parking lot marked as D on the far left is where the supportive housing currently sits. Courtesy: City of Nanaimo<\/p>\n

The CEO of Pacifica Housing, which operates Nikao<\/a>, says they\u2019ve always known the city had plans for the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the idea was always to keep Nikao open until permanent and adequate housing was available for the residents in a new building after eight years, that hasn\u2019t happened, and we\u2019re not sure why,\u201d said Carolina Ibarra, Pacifica Housing\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n

Ibarra says there is nowhere else for the residents to go, no alternative location has been identified, and just closing the doors should not be an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cNikao is one of B.C.\u2019s biggest success stories. We\u2019ve been able to take individuals of the highest complexity of need from the streets of Nanaimo, help them stabilize and many move on,\u201d said Ibarra.<\/p>\n

She says they move on to recovery, permanent supportive housing, and in some cases, independent living.<\/p>\n

She says she\u2019s hopeful a solution can be found with the help of BC Housing and the city.<\/p>\n

BC Housing says it will work with Pacifica Housing to provide new homes for any resident who is impacted by a building closure and adds there are over 200 supportive homes on the way to the community, plus 22 complex care spaces. It says it will share the opening dates for these projects once confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shirley hopes another option will come through, though he\u2019s skeptical, as he doesn\u2019t want to return to the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of Pacifica Housing says there\u2019s no alternative supportive housing location for those living at Nikao on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[4521,49,48,295,200669,2461,200670,66,167189,1062],"class_list":["post-502493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-buildings","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-labieux-road","tag-nanaimo","tag-public-works","tag-science","tag-supportive-housing","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}