Nanaimo Pushed Back. Now 250 Terminal Is Going Recovery-Oriented.
Victoria defended a low-barrier housing-first model. Nanaimo kept demanding a substance-free option. Now the province has changed course.
Nanaimo just won a policy fight Victoria should not have forced it to wage.
On September 3, Housing Minister Christine Boyle issued a statement saying the new purpose-built housing planned for 250 Bryden Street, formerly 250 Terminal Avenue, will operate as recovery-oriented housing. The same statement describes that model as a substance-free surrounding for people recovering from substance-use disorders, and says the project will support people who have experienced or been at risk of homelessness and want to reduce exposure to drugs and alcohol.
That is a major shift from the public position Nanaimo residents heard only weeks earlier. Global News reported in August 2025 that Mayor Leonard Krog and council were pressing the province to make the planned 50-unit project a sober-only facility. Boyle’s answer then was that recovery-oriented housing mattered, but that the Terminal Avenue project had “always been planned” under the province’s housing-first model.
Local pressure did not come from nowhere. NanaimoNewsNOW reported September 3 that previous low-barrier models at 250 Terminal had contributed to years of disorder concerns around the site, frustrating local government and neighbours. The outlet also reported that a final June letter from the city followed repeated denied requests and was backed by neighbourhood groups and local advocates.
The province is now using language Nanaimo had been asking for. In the government statement, Krog thanked the ministry for hearing the long-standing concerns of city council and the Newcastle Neighbourhood Association. Sheila Malcolmson, the local NDP MLA, said making 50 units recovery-oriented gives people more choice.
Choice is exactly the point. Recovery housing is not a rejection of compassion. It is recognition that people trying to stabilize should not be forced to recover in an environment where alcohol and drugs are part of daily life. Krog made that case plainly in the Global report: people who have stopped using need a place where they are not surrounded by consumption and dealers.
David Eby’s government will try to sell this as responsive governing. But the record shows a reversal after Nanaimo had to keep pushing. If the province now accepts that recovery-oriented housing belongs in the continuum, it should explain why local officials had to spend so much time arguing for it at this site.
The accountability question is simple: how many other communities have been told the model is fixed until political pressure becomes impossible to ignore? Nanaimo got a course correction. British Columbians deserve to know whether common sense is now policy, or just the latest exception.