Windsor's homelessness hub will become temporary emergency shelter starting January

Windsor will add overnight spaces to its Homelessness and Housing Help Hub (H4) downtown, paid for by federal money to help increase overnight shelter spaces by 40 per cent during the cold winter months.

The plan will add dozens of temporary overnight spaces to an emergency shelter system that's seeing more people than previous years — who are also staying longer.

Nearly half of the 73 new spaces that are part of this winter initiative will be inside of the H4 but won't be available until early January because it requires hiring more staff. 

A winter initiative to extend hours until 11:30 p.m. last year was made permanent when council funded a plan to "strengthen" the core that extended hours to midnight.

The old gym inside H4 has tables and crash mats laid out that can be used by people seeking shelter.

"That would just continue for 24 hours a day," said Kelly Goz, the city's acting manager of homelessness special projects.

The remaining 38 overnight spaces will be spread across the Salvation Army, Welcome Centre and Essex County Homelessness Hub and could be available as early as next week. 

These spaces would be added to the 187 shelter spaces available across the system, with the majority of those beds inside the Downtown Mission. 

Earlier this year, staff at the mission were worried people in Windsor could die during the coldest days of winter because of capacity issues at shelters across the city. 

Those shelters were full during warmer months in the summer and fall, when operators typically report a drop in demand. 

How will the spaces be paid for?

The money for the temporary overnight spaces will come from a federal program that recently revised its funding agreement with Windsor, according to a report prepared by city administration.

Earlier this year, city staff warned council that the federal government would be cutting back the amount of one-time funding that Windsor and other cities across Canada had expected to receive. 

Staff projected a nearly seven per cent drop in money available under the federal program starting this year, and a further reduction of 74 per cent starting in 2026.

In its report, administration said it advocated for a change to the agreement which resulted in nearly a million dollars more being available this year and next year.

These changes won't cost the city any additional dollars. 

This updated winter plan does not include an overnight warming bus that the city used the federal money to pay for last year. 

That bus cost $143,000 to run from February to April, with administration saying there were around 35 people on the bus each night, and some of those people getting connected to housing within a week, the city added.

Windsor is seeking sponsorships for the bus, but the report said so far nothing has materialized.