Nanaimo, B.C., community safety officers have new tools to help prevent overdoses

The City of Nanaimo has equipped its community safety officers with brand new trucks outfitted with overdose prevention tools, thanks to over $440,0000 in funds from the federal government.

Nanaimo’s community safety officers have been on the streets since the summer of 2022, with a mandate to address social disorder in the Vancouver Island city's downtown core.

According to Adam Coleshaw, one of the city’s CSOs, the job involves working with those experiencing homelessness and connecting them with community partners and services.

But the job has evolved in recent years — as the toxic drug crisis grows, Coleshaw says responding to overdoses has become almost a daily occurrence.

The new trucks are outfitted with automated external defibrillator (AEDs), naloxone and oxygen.

They also have red and white lights, to flag to other emergency responders when CSOs are responding to an overdose.

Coleshaw says that when the trucks first hit the roads at the end of October, his team felt more comfortable responding in times of crises.

“Anytime you have extra training, extra equipment, it allows you that much more confidence,” he said.

The city says that, in 2024 alone, the CSOs administered more than 1,200 doses of the anti-overdose drug naloxone.

Coleshaw says he believes those stats are why the federal government chose to invest in the program.

“The federal government has seen our data and seen the amount of overdoses that we were having to respond to," the CSO said.

"I think they thought it was a worthwhile investment to [take] that extra step to make sure that life is preserved."

Program has its critics

Not everyone in Nanaimo agrees that the CSO program is the best way to address the ongoing crises.

James Booker has been living on the streets on-and-off for almost nine years now, and describes a tense relationship with some of the officers.

He says he would rather see funding go to outreach programs, instead of contributing to what he calls increased policing of the unhoused population.

“I definitely think it would be better used in the shelters, because they have better relationships with the people,” he said.

Booker says that he frequently stays at Risebridge, a local non-profit organization that operates a shelter close to Nanaimo’s downtown.

Risebridge was not eligible to apply directly for the federal funding program in question — which was restricted to municipalities and certain Indigenous groups.

But executive director Jovonne Johnson says she would have appreciated an opportunity to get some of the funding from the municipality, instead of seeing it kept internal.

“We need more spaces open. We need more support services. We need cooling centres and warming centres. We need way more shelter beds than we currently do. We need the harm reduction. We need the outreach,” said Johnson.

“For that funding to then go to the CSO program — and to see them being named as harm reduction outreach efforts — is quite infuriating.”

But Coleshaw says that he sees first-hand the relationships being forged between the CSOs and those on the streets, and that every life saved makes a difference.

“When you save a life, that might be an opportunity for change, for that person to maybe get out of addiction and move forward," the CSO said.