City opens aquatic centre as emergency shelter
After an “unprecedented amount of work” to convert the downtown aquatic centre into a temporary emergency shelter in a matter of days, displaced homeless people began moving in on Thursday.
“This has been an incredible undertaking by all involved, and I want to congratulate everyone on the work done,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said of the quick reaction following COVID -19 outbreaks at the Downtown Mission and Salvation Army and a resulting order issued by the medical officer of health severely restricting the mission's Victoria Ave. operation.
“This site will help safeguard a vulnerable population in our community until the Downtown Mission can get approval from the health unit to resume running,” Dilkens said in a news release.
The city has offered its Windsor International Aquatic and Training Centre until March 29.
A coalition of community agencies that includes Assisted Living Southwestern Ontario, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Family Services Windsor Essex, and Hôtel-dieu Grace Healthcare are running the shelter, which can accommodate 75 people.
City staff “worked around the clock to make this happen so guests of the Mission have a safe place to go,” said the city's commissioner of community development and health services Jelena Payne.
Downtown Mission executive director Ron Dunn, whose staff are also at the aquatic centre, said his management team meets this weekend to work on a plan to comply with the health unit's requirements so people can move back.
The mission has closed its Victoria Ave. headquarters as well as its shelter at 875 Ouellette Ave., and moved the shelter to the vacant former library across the street.
Dunn said he doesn't know whether the mission will ever be able to return to its existing buildings, given the health unit requirements. For example, he's been told that no more than 19 people should be allowed in the dining room at any one time. The mission feeds 180 people three times a day.
“Having a proper shelter is what we need.”