All of the partners involved in the Strengthen the Core - Downtown Windsor Revitalization plan are hard at work behind the scenes, just 10 days since Windsor City Council unanimously approved the plan.
The $3.2 million plan is aimed at revitalizing and improving safety in the downtown by heavily focusing on addressing addiction and mental health issues facing those in the core through policing and improved social service access.
One part of the seven-part strategy is focused specifically on helping those people experiencing homelessness, mental illness and addiction.
Advocating for a 24/7 mental health and addiction treatment facility where police can bring people who need help, but don't require emergency care, is one of the areas Hotel-Dieu Grace is involved in.
HDGH president and CEO Bill Marra says work towards achieving the goals in the plan is underway, but it's going to take a significant amount of collaboration between everyone involved.
"We met amongst a number of partners about three or four days after the Strengthen the Core discussion took place at city council and it was endorsed. We have more meetings scheduled, work had already begun before the formal resolution of council that endorsed the plan, anticipating it would be endorsed. The fact that it was unanimous was really impressive so work's begun already," he said.
HDGH provides some mental health resources in the core, and Marra says some of the hospital’s services will be moving to their new location at 500 Ouellette Avenue soon.
"Some of those models of care will change, but there's more work being done. It's much bigger and more comprehensive than that and it involves several partners. So I can't get into a lot of details because we're still in the planning stages, but it's going to be very imminent, the announcements. And there's going to be several of them over the coming weeks and months."
Marra says some of the work they have to do is really around revisiting some of their existing models.
"They're outdated, they don't align with how things have organically evolved over time, and I'm speaking specifically of course around health care. The delivery of health care has to change with the times, no different than law enforcement or social services. So as part of that action step we're revisiting our models of care, the framework under which we deliver it, and we're talking to partners about some changes," he said.
Things are progressing at a pace where officials are planning to have news to announce related to the Strengthen the Core plan in the coming days and weeks, with Marra saying they're not wasting any time and that people will see work happening going into the summer and throughout the summer.