City council approves homelessness and housing hub concept
The City of Windsor will be creating a new homeless and housing hub after council unanimously supported the vision at a special meeting of council Monday.
The city has been operating a hub model at Windsor Water World during the pandemic and learned some troubling statistics about the homeless population in Windsor — 350 people have been identified as chronically homeless.
“Our goal in the community is to make homelessness as infrequent and as short term as possible,” said Jennifer Tanner, the city’s manager of housing and homelessness.
Council has delegated authority for the city to begin consultations and planning for a 60-bed emergency shelter, which would be augmented with other supports for diversion and mediation, outreach supports, healthcare and mental health practitioners as well as addiction counselling.
“This is the best way that a municipality can respond to begin to offer those wrap around services in a cost-effective way,” said Joyce Zuk, the executive director of Family Services Windsor-Essex.
Zuk said the core mantra must remain “housing first.”
“Moving someone into the housing is just one part of the puzzle. The other major component is supporting people once they receive that housing,” she said.
There may be no example of this more glaring than what’s happening right now at 245 Detroit Street.
“It’s been a nightmare. It’s been crazy the rain on Saturday nearly washed us out,” said John Bradley, one of dozens of former residents at River Place who were evicted last week when the city condemned the building. “We survived the storm, and we’re just going to keep going.”
Bradley was originally living in an encampment near the railroad cut but moved to River Place when the encampment was broken up.
Many of these residents didn’t have supports when they relocated and now that the building is shuttered, they’re living in a temporary tent encampment out front of the vacant building, once again homeless and without supports.
“Get us a place to stay,” he said. “Get us off the streets.”
The city’s commissioner of health and human services, Jelena Payne, says it will likely be a year or two before a shovel even hits the ground, a process that will include design, site selection, consultations and choosing an independent operator.
“We will expedite things as quickly as we can, but sometimes we’re at the mercy of the funding opportunities that are put before us,” said Payne.
But many delegates at Monday’s meeting pointed out there are inherent policing, parks and bylaw costs already associated with the city’s growing population of people experiencing homelessness.
“The cost of doing nothing is far greater than the investment council is being asked to make,” said Anna Angelidis, a member of the city’s housing advisory committee.
The full cost of the project is unknown, but Councillor Rino Bortolin is asking the city to send a letter to upper levels of government to advocate for more funding.
“Are we going to solve the issue of homelessness? Maybe five to 10 years down the line we may be closer to that, but this is just a step in the right direction,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'They needed people inside Air Canada:' Police announce arrests in Pearson gold heist
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
Why drivers in Eastern Canada could see big gas price spikes, and other Canadians won't
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Customers disappointed after email listing $60K Tim Hortons prize sent in error
Several Tim Horton’s customers are feeling great disappointment after being told by the company that an email stating they won a boat worth nearly $60,000 was sent in error.
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
House admonishes ArriveCan contractor in rare parliamentary show of power
MPs enacted an extraordinary, rarely used parliamentary power on Wednesday, summonsing an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons where he was admonished publicly and forced to provide answers to the questions MPs said he'd previously evaded.
Woman who pressured boyfriend to kill his ex in 2000s granted absences from prison
A woman who pressured her boyfriend into killing his teenage ex more than a decade ago will be allowed to leave prison for weeks at a time.
Attempt to have murder charge quashed against alleged serial killer dismissed by judge
A motion filed by the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg to have one of those murder charges quashed has been dismissed by the judge – weeks before the start of his trial.
Government proposes new policy for federally regulated employees to disconnect from work
In their 2024 budget, the federal government wants to amend the Canada Labour Code, so employers in federally regulated sectors will eliminate work-related communication with employees outside of scheduled hours. If implemented, this would affect roughly 500,000 employees across the country.
Earthquake jolts southern Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, without issuing a tsunami warning.