City council wants to know what options are available to centralize mental health, addiction, and homeless services into one location in downtown Windsor.
Council approved a motion from Ward 3's Renaldo Agostino during Monday's meeting that directs administration to report back on options to co-locate existing services already in the core into a single downtown site and ways to divert people away from homelessness.
It stemmed from a conversation on progress made under the Strengthen the Core-Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan launched in May 2024 to improve safety, cleanliness, and business growth in the core, including an effort to address the impact of mental health, addiction, and homelessness on the downtown.
Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association Chair Chris MacLeod addressed the council and says they had been hopeful at one time that they could find a location outside downtown to put all the services but understand the significant budgetary challenges.
MacLeod says let's just find the resources to do the best we can with what we have.
"If my choice is that I either continue to suffer across my downtown with all of the services being spread out or I get 80 per cent of downtown that I can work on revitalizing and 20 per cent has to bear the brunt of those services, then I'm willing to accept that," he says.
The push to co-locate services could include moving the Downtown Mission at 875 Ouellette Ave., not far from Elliott Street West.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens recently stated that the city was exploring options to renovate Windsor Arena to operate in coordination with the nearby Homelessness and Housing Help Hub, or H4, and the wraparound services already offered at that site at the corner of McDougall Avenue and Wyandotte Street East. The city already owns both properties.
MacLeod says he feels terrible for the people suffering from addiction, but what we're doing is not working.
"So, we bring all the people to the mission in the morning and then we disperse them out into downtown to find the services that they need. I watch from my office door as they come down Pelissier to Positive Pathways to get a safe supply and then go back up to my parking lot on Pelissier to inject poison into their veins," he says.
MacLeod says we need to do better in how we're helping those facing addiction and where we help them.
"I guess what I'm saying is that we don't need to continue to put those issues on display and we don't need to be dispersing people across the downtown to find the services that they need," he says.
Ward 3 Councillor Renaldo Agostino says the Strengthen the Core work has helped them identify the biggest things they need to do, and that's changing the way they take care of people.
"The variety store style of taking care of people has to stop. That's what it is right now. It's a variety store style; you're going from a methadone clinic to a shelter to a Positive Pathways type of service. You're just walking around looking for help," he says.
An initial search for a permanent H4 site that would bring all services under one roof saw the city examine a property at 700 Wellington Avenue, but that was pulled off the table in December 2024 due to the cost of land acquisition and the estimated $60 million cost of the overall project.
In May 2025, the council voted to look beyond a two-kilometre radius of the downtown core and instead explore options right across the city.