Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens says the city has not turned away anyone seeking shelter at the downtown aquatics centre despite claims from the executive director of the Downtown Mission.
"We never hit capacity," he says. "Those reports that we turned folks away are absolutely, completely 100 per cent false."
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Dilkens says the city has put in place four rules for the aquatic centre that guests must follow.
He says they have to agree to take a rapid COVID-19 test, they cannot fight, do drugs or have sex.
"Certainly a very strange and troubling situation and what everyone is watching is the Downtown Mission openly violating and challenging the authority the Medical Officer of Health and the public health unit in the middle of a global pandemic," says Dilkens. "I think at the end of the day, it says an awful lot about the leadership at the mission."
As heard on AM800 news Wednesday morning, mission executive director Ron Dunn says up to 35 people are staying at the former central library branch because they were turned away from the city's two isolation and recovery centres.
Dilkens believes there are some positive COVID cases using the former library.
"The real troubling part here is that we've had folks who are COVID positive, we are under taking their 14 day quarantine at the hotel, leave the hotel, check themselves out of quarantine before they reached 14 days and go back to the mission in the library space they've opened," says Dilkens. "So Ron Dunn has pulled some of his staff back that were deployed at the aquatic centre."
He says other agencies have been working with the city.
"The Salvation Army has been a great partner," says Dilkens. "They've doubled their capacity. They opened up another 25 beds, great partner to work with but for some reason the mission just refuses to support this and I can't for the life of me understand why."
Dunn says homeless people who are staying at the mission's emergency shelter have made their way Wednesday morning to the aquatic centre to receive a rapid COVID-19 test.
Those who get a negative result and are virus-free will request placement at the isolation and recovery centre.
Dunn has vowed to keep the emergency shelter at the library open, despite an order from the city to close it.