14. Housing, Homelessness & Community Well-Being
Why This Matters
Housing and homelessness are city-wide issues that affect neighbourhoods, businesses, public spaces and, most importantly, people. The City cannot solve them alone, but it has a real role in housing policy, planning, partnerships, outreach, coordinated services, and advocating for the provincial and federal resources Windsor needs.
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My approach is practical and humane. People experiencing homelessness need pathways toward stability, housing, healthcare, mental-health and addiction supports where needed. At the same time, residents and businesses have legitimate expectations that public spaces remain safe and usable. Compassion and public order should not be treated as opposites.
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I want decisions judged by whether they actually move people toward stable housing and improve community well-being, not simply by whether a program sounds compassionate or tough.
What City Hall Can Do
The City has real responsibilities in housing policy, planning, homelessness services, public spaces and partnerships, but income supports, healthcare, mental-health/addiction systems and much affordable-housing funding depend heavily on provincial and federal governments.
Who Needs to Be Involved
People with lived experience, residents and businesses, City housing/homelessness staff, housing providers, outreach and health agencies, police where appropriate, community organizations and provincial/federal governments.
Cost and Funding
Housing and homelessness responses can be expensive, which is why I want measurable outcomes and clarity about what each level of government is funding. Costs should be compared with the public and human costs of repeated emergency responses and chronic homelessness.
Municipal housing/homelessness budgets, provincial and federal housing and homelessness programs, non-profit and supportive-housing partnerships, and other eligible capital or service funding.
What I Will Do
Demand clear outcome reporting, support evidence-based pathways toward stable housing, press upper governments for their share of funding, and insist that programs protect both human dignity and the safety and usability of public spaces.
My Action Plan
1. Start with measurable outcomes: how many people move from homelessness into stable housing, how long they remain housed, what emergency-service use changes, and what public-space impacts improve. Compassion and accountability belong together.
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2. Support a housing continuum - prevention, emergency shelter, transitional/supportive options, deeply affordable housing, and permanent housing - because no single program fits every person or stage of need.
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3. Strengthen coordination among housing, outreach, mental-health/addictions, health and community agencies so residents are not repeatedly handed from one disconnected service to another.
4. Advocate to the Province and federal government for the health, income-support and housing dollars that municipalities cannot reasonably replace from property taxes alone.
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5. Protect the usability and safety of parks, sidewalks, libraries, businesses and neighbourhood spaces while treating people experiencing homelessness with dignity. Residents should not be forced to choose between compassion and functioning public spaces.
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6. Use City land, planning tools, partnerships and funding strategically where they can increase housing supply or supportive housing, but require credible operating plans and transparent costs.
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7. Report outcomes publicly. If an initiative is not reducing homelessness, improving stability or making public spaces safer, Council should be willing to change course rather than defend a program because money has already been spent.