Homelessness Hub opens in Leamington

By Mark Ribble

Although the official grand opening of the Essex County Homelessness Hub has not taken place, county residents experiencing homelessness can now drop in at the new hub located within the confines of the South Essex Community Council (SECC) building at 215 Talbot Street East in Leamington.

At the September 21 meeting of Essex County Council, a report brought to council outlined the work being done to battle homelessness in Essex County.

The homelessness issue has traditionally been something that occurred and was dealt with in the City of Windsor, but many other municipalities in the county have seen increases in homelessness over the past several years.

The upper levels of government provide funds to the City of Windsor, who in turn distributes those funds as they see fit.

Jeannie Diamond-Francis, who is the Mental Health Services Manager for the County of Essex, led the presentation to council.

County Council has recently approved a two-year pilot project to enter into an agreement with Family Services Windsor-Essex to develop a homelessness hub program to deliver various services to those experiencing homelessness in Essex County.

“Family Services has an agreement with SECC to lease space in their existing building at 215 Talbot Street East,” she said.

Diamond-Francis said that the hub opened on September 12 and has already had several people stop in to check out the services.

The Hub will be a drop-in style, where people experiencing homelessness can come in to explore the various agencies who can provide help to them, such as Ontario Works, employment services, apartment hunting help.

“There are also plans to include health care,” she added.

Leamington Mayor Hilda MacDonald spoke to the importance of the Hub in and around Leamington.

“It is such a crucial obligation to help people who find themselves in this situation,” she said. “We get calls from someone in a precarious situation and now we have somewhere to refer them to.”

MacDonald asked if there had been any progress by the county administration with regard to homelessness housing, particularly with winter approaching.

Diamond-Francis said that there is a lack of emergency shelter beds in the county and many people have to find their way to the city for emergency shelter. She did say that there is a motel program in Leamington that they hope will be operational soon — giving the Leamington-area homeless population a warm bed at night.

Bruce Krauter, Chief of Essex-Windsor EMS Services, came forward to outline a plan for temporary housing in the county.

“We’ve explored the feasibility of providing temporary shelter within the county,” he said. “We’ve had numerous meetings over the last four months.”

Krauter says the county is exploring deployable housing units — an idea that has come out of two-and-a-half years of dealing with such issues as the migrant worker isolation and recovery centre, homelessness and emergency preparedness.

He said they’ve decided that homelessness is currently the most pressing issue.