Question's are looming on the future of Windsor's SafePoint site after the province paused approving new supervised consumption and treatment sites while a review of all 17 sites is underway.
The province launched a "critical incident review" in the summer after a 44-year-old mother of two was killed by a stray bullet near a consumption site in Toronto's east end following a physical altercation between three men.
Police have laid charges against several people in the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat, including accessory after the fact and obstructing justice counts laid against a woman who works at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre.
Huebner-Makurat's death sparked outrage and a debate over supervised consumption sites.
Ontario's associate minister for mental health Michael Tibollo says everything is on the table with the review, including the locations of treatment and consumption sites.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has Health Canada approval to operate SafePoint as an urgent public health needs site at the corner of Wyandotte Street and Goyeau Street in downtown Windsor.
The health unit still needs approval from the province to officially designate it as a consumption and treatment services site.
Speaking on AM800's The Dan MacDonald Show, Ward 1 city councillor and Windsor-Essex County Health Unit board member Fred Francis says what happens in Toronto doesn't necessarily indicate what happens in Windsor.
"If you're going to judge us, judge us on the facts that our relevant to us, and when you look at the SafePoint on Wyandotte, a lot of the doom and gloom that was said before the vote happened, a commercial area was going to be decimated, high crime rates, violence. None of that materialized."
He says some of the criticism's he's heard from other politicians is that no one is using the service.
Francis points out that there's been an increase of people using the service month over month.
"One of the reasons I did support it was we need this data. We never had the data. Now we have a year's worth of data pretty much. What works, what doesn't work. How can we tweak it. And I can tell you the numbers have increased month after month. People are getting help. There's been some diversion, right, people are getting the help they require. I think it's a worth while endeavour, that's why I support it, that's why I continue to support it."
Francis says when council approved the funding for SafePoint, they had every indication from their provincial-counterparts that they would receive provincial funding by end of summer.
He says he's now worried that people will say I told you so or how irresponsible of a decision was that of you.
"To those people I'll say listen I feel comfortable in my decision because at the end of the day it was moral one and I want to help people. I don't want to sit there and wait for funding for six eight months knowing that we could save one life. I had this discussion the other day with someone, and they're like well no one is going there, and I'm like okay tell me, is it how many lives do we have to save what makes it worth it. Is it one, is it five, is it ten? Give me a number, because for me, it's one."
Francis says the health unit's application was fully completed and they were the next few in line to receive provincial funding by July or August.
He says the province needs to step up and do what they've done for the other 17 communities and sites.
He says they need answers as to when the review will be completed as the Health Unit, City of Windsor and County of Essex enter budget talks.
"How are we going to fund this thing. Are we going to fund this thing? Is it going to close? Are we going to keep it open? Are we going to keep it open the way it is now or is it going to look different. So those are all answers that we need."
Francis says he thinks the work being done is good and we're building upon something.
"You know we talk about downtown, we talk about homelessness and addiction and everyone is talking about how can we provide more services, how can we provide assistance. It's multi-pronged approach. Everyone would acknowledge that but having a SafePoint injection site, having a harm reduction is one of those prongs. It has to be. In my opinion."
The province did not indicate how long a review would take, but Tibollo says the province is not looking at shutting down any of the province's 17 supervised consumption and treatment sites.
-With files from AM800's Rusty Thomson and The Canadian Press