The chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association (DWBIA) says the current approach to mental illness and addiction supports in the downtown core is not working.
Chris McLeod was responding to Ward 3 Councillor Renaldo Agostino's frustration over the ongoing problems in the core caused by people dealing with those issues and the proximity of services and homeless shelters in and around downtown.
At Monday's city council meeting, Agostino asked administration to prepare a report for the next meeting of the council on how other municipalities determine the location of emergency homeless shelters.
McLeod told AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides that the city needs a better strategy.
"How can we share that load among our community and not continue to make downtown a dumping place for all of those problems?," he said. "And we see it, you know, we see people who are being dropped at the mission. They're being dropped downtown from other municipalities, from areas outside of Windsor-Essex County, and we just can't allow that to continue to happen."
McLeod says he believes in the need for services to help the vulnerable population, but maybe a strategy could include using smaller hubs within different locations in the city.
"Homelessness, mental illness and addiction, if you drive around our community, they are not just a downtown problem, I mean those issues exist in many areas within our community, and I think maybe we need to look at a support structure that recognizes that there are needs in south Windsor, there are needs in east Windsor and Tecumseh," McLeod said.
In December 2024, the City of Windsor announced it was no longer pursuing land at 700 Wellington Avenue for the Homelessness and Housing Help Hub (H4) due to the cost associated with land acquisition.
McLeod says if the H4 had moved from Wyandotte Street to Wellington, it would have allowed to co-locate a number of support services to industrialized lands.
"I think we could have done a much better job of helping people, the wrap around services that were proposed in terms of transitional housing and support services, and really helping people, protecting people from those that prey on them, protecting them drug dealers and those kind of people," said McLeod.
The report is expected back at the May 26 council meeting.
-With files from AM800's Rusty Thomson