Windsor mayoral candidate Matt Marchand is rolling out a detailed plan to address the opioid and homeless issue.
Calling the 11-page document Windsor 2022, Marchand says this is multi-point plan that will reduce both problems in four years.
Among the items are the hiring of a special consultant to the mayor focused on opioid and homeless problems, a pilot program hiring homeless people to clean up alleys and garages as well as transitional lockers to help the homeless move toward employment.
Marchand says he consulted with about 20 local agencies and spoke with former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer.
He says the program uses successful ideas that have worked in other communities like Medicine Hat and San Diego.
"Obviously reduction in crime, we want to see a reduction in overdoses, we want to see a reduction in crimes against people. We want to see if our strategy is having an impact, we want to see if businesses are thriving, all those types of things are going to be measured and it's important we have those measurements to let the community know what we're doing, why we're doing it and what measure of success we're having," says Marchand. "And if we're not having success we need to back out and figure out what we're doing"
Mayoral candidate Matt Marchand speaks at a platform announcement in downtown Windsor, September 25, 2018 (Photo by AM800's Peter Langille)
Current Mayor Drew Dilkens says the city is already in the process of implementing most of what's in Marchand's 11-page document.
"We're already doing most of what he's proposing," he says. "At the end of the day the residents have to ask themselves one question. Who do you think can actually continue to deliver on these plans. The person who's been doing it, the person who knows the plans the people who has the people already around the table working on solutions or someone from the outside who's proposing they'll do the same thing"
Marchand is not saying existing measures aren't working, but that his plan would be more effective.
"There are some ideas in place right now and that's great. We think this is a more comprehensive and detailed approach. We're looking at best practices from other communities. If you go through the document you'll see we looked at Medicine Hat which basically in their analysis largely reduced homeless to effectively zero."
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens holds his first re-election news conference in front of police headquarters, September 13, 2018 (Photo by AM800's Peter Langille)
In response, Mayor Dilkens says there are items in the proposal that would create more problems than they would solve.
"Some of the things that are proposed are things we would never do, I think they would actually be more harmful than good," says Dilkens. "Its easy to go on the internet pick out pieces that other cities are doing and say let's do that in Windsor. It's a lot more difficult to understand how the system works and the complexities and the funding complexities of the system"
Also on the ticket to be mayor are Ernie Lamont, Frank Dyck and Tom Hensel.
Voting Day is October 22.