After two years operating in Windsor's downtown, the Crisis and Mental Wellness Centre is celebrating its success.
The Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare facility has been known as the Transitional Stability Centre, but the new name better reflects what they do.
There was an open house at the centre on Ouellette Avenue near Tuscarora to show how it has evolved.
Dawn Nasser is an intake worker, who meets the clients first, and says the centre can help a broader range of people.
"It was done in stages, there were a huge number of challenges and obstacles because it's an older building and permits and all of those kinds of things but we now have all of the services anybody would need in one place"
Erena Pesin is the LaSalle Police mental health officer, who says the centre helps with those kinds of calls and makes policing more effective.
"What we're trying to do is reduce those calls by getting people connected if this is non-emergency service. It could be used this is a place officers can drop a person off to and connect them by allowing them to be available for calls and not being tied up at hospital for hours"
Rob Moroz is in charge of the Wellness centre and says they don't just help the homeless.
Crisis and Mental Wellness Centre director Robert Moroz, 744 Ouellette Avenue, December 7, 2018 (by AM800's Peter Langille)
"We've had people with professional backgrounds that came in looking for mental health services and we connected them up. We also have street people coming in that have no OHIP coverage and we have to start getting connected. We've had people coming in off busses from out of town that are psychotic and have no income and we'll take them as they are and get them connected to where they need to go"
One of the main differences is that services like the Canadian Mental Health Association are in-house and clients don't have to go to a different location.
Over the two years the centre has been open around 1600 people have been helped or linked with the services they need.