City extends temporary shelter to Dec. 9 to help evacuated apartment tenants

The City of Windsor has extended a temporary shelter to help evacuated tenants of an Ouellette Avenue apartment.

The shelter was slated to close Monday, but the city and Red Cross will now continue to operate the temporary location until Friday, Dec. 9.

“They were bad before I moved in, but I had no place else to go,” said Jerrod Lefler, a 1616 Ouellette Avenue resident who has been relying on the temporary emergency shelter since the building was evacuated last month.

City staff have been working to help displaced tenants of 1616 Ouellette Avenue find alternate accommodations while repairs to their private four-story residence can be made.

“Listen, they're feeding us three times a day, it’s warm, there's coffee. The Red Cross is here if anybody needs any help. Housing is here helping people get a place,” Jerrod Lefler, who has been staying at the shelter said.

Lefler signed a lease on Monday for a new place lined up by the city.

“I'm definitely happy for me,” he said. “I can get my dog back and everything in order, I mean I'm going to be safe, I'm gonna be warm, but there's people that need help here. Yeah. And I you know, I'm still worried about them.”

Mary-Ann Pitts, another resident who has been staying at the shelter, is one of those people.

“They take us out of our home and then they drop us off somewhere and then tell us to leave,” she told CTV News.

Pitts uses a wheelchair, and has yet to secure alternative housing, she is unsure what will happen come Friday.

“I wish this never happened. I wish we never moved in there,” she said. “I wish they’d demolish the damn place.” 

City officials say approximately 30 displaced residents remain at the temporary emergency shelter in the John Atkinson Memorial Community Centre, but the majority of these people are now finalizing alternate established housing plans.Emergency shelter at the John Atkinson Memorial Community Centre. (Sijia Liu/CTV News Windsor)

“We’ve been operating the temporary location for two weeks, and these extra couple of days are going to allow more tenants to finalize arrangements,” said Kirk Whittal, executive director of Housing and Children’s Services. “We know this is a very anxious time for those remaining at the temporary emergency shelter, but we’re committed to doing everything we can to help, and we can assure everyone that no one will be without safe shelter options.”

Once the shelter closes, any remaining displaced tenants who have been staying at the temporary emergency shelter and have not found a permanent or temporary place to stay will be offered a space within the community’s emergency shelter system.

“I think that's a couple extra days were needed a couple extra days were provided,” Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino said. “I don't think there's any rush to kick people out, or send people to the street.”

The temporary emergency shelter was opened Tuesday, Nov. 22, as a temporary measure to help those displaced from their apartments due to an evacuation order issued by Building Officials for unsafe living conditions: no heat, reliable electricity or functioning life safety systems.

Since then, city staff, the Red Cross, and other community partners have worked around the clock to provide displaced residents a safe place to sleep at the temporary emergency shelter, along with food, clothing, housing search supports, and medical services.

“And I'd say there's probably 20 per cent of the people that we're living in there that needed assistance and needed medical care,” Agostino said. “There's people that haven't seen a doctor there for 25 years. There's people that were on the bus with sores everywhere. This has been the silver lining of all this. There's people that needed help, and thanks to the city making the move they made or we made, they got the help they need it.”

City officials say they remain in regular contact with the property owners and their new management team, and progress continues to be reported.

The city says the new management company is working with local contractors to make repairs, and they have reported positive results, but there are no firm timelines for a return to occupancy at this point.

- With files from CTV Windsor's Travis Fortnum