Nanaimo’s Salvation Army might abandon its meal program, leaving a big gap in food security
The Salvation Army’s Nanaimo director of services Rob Anderson recently told the Nanaimo Working Group on Homelessness that the organization faces a funding problem. Unless it can get other community organizations to help fund its meal programs, the Sally Ann may need to close them down altogether. City of Nanaimo social planner John Horn told The Nanaimo Daily News that the meal programs at New Hope Centre became a victim of their own success, with the numbers of people accessing meals increasing over time.
Community activists, meanwhile, question where donations to The Salvation Army are going and are calling for a community-wide response to the issue of hunger in the City of Nanaimo. The Salvation Army, for its part, has called for the creation of a task group to ensure the sustainability of its food programs.
We speak with Rob Anderson of The Salvation Army, Wallace Malay of the Creative Awareness Collective, and John Horn, social planner for the City of Nanaimo.
