'It's a challenging job': New community safety officers support homeless population in Nanaimo

CTV News Vancouver Island recently spent time with members of Nanaimo's "community safety officer program," which has been up and running since October.

Its role is to support the unhoused community by using a friendly approach centred around de-escalation.

Community safety officer Tabitha McPhail and program supervisor Barry Hornby have been on the job for about five months now, and the workload isn't light.

"It's a challenging job," said Hornby.

"It's not just an easy 'show up nine to five,'" said McPhail.

From 6 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., seven days a week, the 12 officers hired on the community safety team pound the pavement.

"People are seeing us and they know us by first name and call out, and they ask us for help," said McPhail.

Since October, they've responded to about 3,500 calls.

"It's a community and we are out there to help people," said Hornby. "We are all citizens and [we want to] make sure everybody's safe."

Their job can range from helping a person who is unhoused clean up their space, to de-escalating a hostile crowd and asking them to clear the sidewalks.

"It starts with sometimes cleaning your area and being proud of that, and then moving through that," said McPhail.

Other times, people seek medical support and ask the community safety officers to help them get in touch with Island Health.

All too often, however, the officers say they encounter people who are in distress.

While speaking with CTV News on Friday, the pair had to step aside and call 911 after spotting a man having a potential overdose.

Firefighters and paramedics quickly arrived and took the man to hospital.

"This is just one of the many things we are going to do today, is check on people's welfare, because nobody else was checking on him," said Hornby.

It might not be the easiest job in the world, but for these officers, they believe they are saving lives and making a difference in the community.

"I like helping people, as does my team, and that's why we do this," said Hornby.

"If we didn't care, we wouldn't be doing this as a job." 

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