NANAIMO'S ECONOMIC ENGINE - NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK

 

The Crisis Industry: Nanaimo’s Fastest-Growing Economic Sector

From police to peer workers, shelters to soup lines — a vast taxpayer-funded network has grown around the drug-fueled collapse. But is it solving the crisis, or sustaining it?

A Booming Industry No One Asked For

While traditional sectors like tourism, retail, and construction struggle with workforce shortages or declining margins, a different kind of economy is thriving in Nanaimo: the Crisis Industry.

Built around public disorder, addiction, homelessness, and mental health breakdowns, this sector now involves thousands of personnel—police officers, social workers, shelter staff, outreach teams, and non-profit contractors—all woven into a permanent response structure.

Whether it’s saving lives, managing chaos, or simply keeping a lid on it, this industry has quietly become one of the fastest-growing in the region.

Publicly Funded, Privately Administered, Crisis by Design

Over the last decade, Nanaimo has seen explosive growth in:
- Police & Community Safety staffing, including the expansion of Community Safety Officers (CSOs)
- Outreach & Mental Health Teams under Island Health and Pathways BC
- Shelter systems & housing support from non-profit operators like ICCS and CMHA
- Peer-led and volunteer services, including long-standing providers like the 7–10 Club Society
- Feeding programs, emergency shelter, and low-barrier housing, much of it subsidized by local and provincial taxpayers

While the delivery may be local, the dollars often originate at higher levels of government, feeding a multi-tiered response apparatus.

How Big Is It? Let’s Look at the Numbers

According to the City of Nanaimo’s 2025 State of the Economy report:
- Health care and social services now account for ~16% of the local labour force—making it one of the city’s largest and most resilient job sectors
- From 2016 to 2021, Nanaimo added over 1,500 jobs in health and social assistance
- Job growth in this space has outpaced population growth, suggesting a structural shift in the local economy

In other words, managing crisis has become not just a public duty—but an economic driver.

Who’s Involved in the Crisis Economy?

Here’s a breakdown of the players:

1. RCMP & Community Safety Officers (CSOs)

- Frontline enforcement, de-escalation, and community presence
- Funded municipally but operate in tandem with provincial services

2. Island Health / Pathways Teams

- Crisis response nurses, outreach social workers, ACT and ICM team members
- Handle mental health, addiction, and post-overdose interventions

3. Non-Profit Agencies (Publicly Funded)

- ICCS, CMHA, AVI, Salvation Army, Unitarian Shelter, Nanaimo Family Life
- Employ support workers, outreach staff, program coordinators
- Many operate 24/7 low-barrier and transitional housing sites

4. Food & Support Volunteers

- The 7–10 Club Society, operating since 1985, feeds 150–200 people per day—entirely volunteer-run
- Other feeding programs: Stone Soup, Loaves & Fishes, St. Paul’s Church, Nanaimo Foodshare

Crisis Dependency: A Self-Perpetuating Machine?

With overdose deaths still surging, mental health demand rising, and tent encampments regularly popping up, it’s clear the need remains high.

But so does the risk of institutional dependency.

“We now employ more people to manage the fallout than we do to prevent it.”

Each new layer of service tends to generate a need for more coordinators, safety personnel, reporting systems, and housing stock. That means more grant funding, more administrative roles, more spin-off contracts.

Whether you view it as compassion, containment, or complicity—it is undeniably a growth industry.

Conclusion: When Crisis Becomes the Economy

The irony is sharp. An economy built on dysfunction can never root out its cause without jeopardizing itself.

The question Nanaimo must face isn’t just “How do we respond better?”

It’s “How do we stop growing this industry altogether?”

Because if the Crisis Industry becomes Nanaimo’s primary economic engine, we’ve already lost the plot.

Voice of Nanaimo will continue investigating:
- The true cost of crisis management in Nanaimo
- Where the money flows—and who’s accountable
- What alternative models exist (treatment-first, enforcement-led, community-run)

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It’s time for real accountability.