Hired to create a safer downtown Windsor, a consultant on criminal justice management hopes to have some recommendations by the end of February.
Peter Bellmio has been hired by the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association to examine issues like drug use, homelessness and crime.
He's interviewing about 40 people from organizations like the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, Downtown Mission, AIDS Committee of Windsor and Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.
Bellmio will also meet with Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick on Friday to gain an understanding on policing efforts in the city core.
He says says he needs to hear from the Windsor community what the challenges are.
"To try to look at how each is looking at these problems and where there's commonalities, where there's places and opportunities for collaboration and also to beginning to define with a few more metrics. What does victory look like?," says Bellmio.
He says sorting out what agencies and organizations can handle is a key to the solution.
"You have to look for places where there can be collaboration. Where we make decisions of who's going to take the head, who's going to take the tail, who's going to take the feet, how can we really use our resources the best?," says Bellmio. "This is natural, this is normal when a community starts to mobilize like this, it takes some time to sort all that out."
The DWBIA has a budget of about $10,000 for the creation of the report.
Bellmio says what he offers is a comprehensive view to see things that aren't obvious to people dealing with the issues daily.
It's not the first time Bellmio has developed a plan for the downtown. That last time was in 2003 when the issue was downtown bars and crime.