Four people who sheltered at former library test positive for COVID-19

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Eleven people from the Downtown Mission walked to the aquatic centre Wednesday morning to take COVID-19 tests and try to secure accommodations, as the city threatened to shut down what it has been referring to as a rogue shelter.

Staff at the Windsor International and Aquatic Training centre conducted rapid COVID-19 tests on 14 individuals Wednesday morning, according to Andrew Teliszewsky, Mayor Drew Dilken’s chief of staff.

Five people who had stayed at the mission’s emergency shelter in the former library building on Ouellette Avenue tested positive.

“The result of rapid testing this morning at the Aquatic Centre confirmed the fears that City Administration expressed when the leadership of the mission established the rogue shelter,” Teliszewsky said in an emailed statement.

Downtown Mission executive director Ron Dunn re-opened the temporary emergency shelter Sunday, defying a public health order, after discovering 35 people had nowhere to spend the night.

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Dunn said 30 people stayed at the emergency shelter Tuesday night.

Kevin Keane found shelter there after spending nights on the streets. Wednesday he headed to the aquatic centre.

“We came down here (to the aquatic centre when) they told us they were going to throw us out of the library,” Keane said. “I think it was the mayor who said we were allowed to come here today so we all marched down here today. There was 11 of us.

“When we got here they said we’re not allowed in. Then the lady got a phone call and all of a sudden everything changed. We’re good to go in,” he said.

“So we’ll see what happens. They’re taking us in right now and hopefully it works out.”

Keane, 62, said he spent 10 days in the Agra Isolation and Recovery Centre set up by the city and tested negative three times for the coronavirus but still was not allowed into the aquatic centre or the daytime shelter at Windsor Water World.

“They wouldn’t give me a reason and told me I’d have to go back into the IRC,” Keane said, adding they had told him he was cleared at the isolation and recovery centre.

“Thank God Ron opened the library and we had a place to go. It’s all mixed up. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. Hopefully it works out today.”

Mayor Drew Dilkens said there’s no reason for those 35 people to sleep on the street.

“We have space. We have space in the IRC and we have space in the (aquatic centre) and space at the Salvation Army,” Dilkens said. “There’s more space now in the shelter system than existed prior to us opening the aquatic centre.

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“There are options that exist. Shelters are not at capacity,” Dilkens said. “So what Ron’s doing by opening the library and bringing people in is perpetuating the spread of the virus.”

Jelena Payne, the city’s commissioner of community development and health services, said it was the health unit that ordered the library building to be emptied on Feb. 19.

“We responded because we had to. We had to find a place for people to go,” Payne said of the city’s temporary shelter at the aquatic centre, the isolation and recovery centre and numerous hotel rooms used for quarantine.

“My staff will not turn anybody away,” Payne said.

City officials said the mission’s emergency shelter put more people at risk.

“Mixing COVID-positive persons with others has now exposed all those patrons and staff congregating at the library site overnight to at least three individuals who has (sic) been determined to be COVID positive,” Teliszewsky wrote.

“By openly disobeying Dr. (Wajid) Ahmed’s Order, Mr. Dunn has put the health and safety of all his clients and staff at risk.”

But Dunn wasn’t backing down Wednesday.

“I’ll maintain that we did the right thing,” he said. “We’re being called rogue. I don’t see it that way. At the end of the day, we created a system. I participated in it. It left 35 people homeless.

“Emergency shelter needs to be 24 hours a day. It needs to be real time. And it needs to accept all people instantly, not hours and hours later, go to this building and that building,” Dunn said.

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“I get that it was put together quickly. I appreciate that it’s not perfect. We’re not perfect either. But this has become political and not about people and that’s just wrong.”

Dunn said he and the board members at the mission made a decision “in the best interest of those that we serve and not the mayor’s office.”

“I’ve told Drew, if you’re not going to help us please don’t hurt us. I get that it’s political. I get that he doesn’t like me. Great. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Mayors come and mayors go. I’m not going to be here forever either. The point is this is about the people we’re trying to serve. It’s not about politics.”

Dilkens disagreed.

“None of this is political. None of this is personal,” Dilkens said. “We never asked for any of this. We simply responded to Dr. Ahmed’s original order back in February where he issued the order to close the mission down and not accept any new folks.

“The system that is in place is in fact a system designed to keep people safe,” he said.

“I don’t even know Ron Dunn. So none of this is personal to me,” he added. “What I want and what city council wants and what the city wants is a proper response, reflective of the situation that we’re in, which is a global pandemic.

Teliszewsky said individuals who tested positive were placed at the isolation and recovery motel facility, proving “that the systems put in place by the Health Unit and Coalition of social service partners that established and administer the Temporary Emergency Shelter at the Aquatic’s Centre is working.”

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“Sadly, this all could have been avoided if these individuals had presented themselves sooner for rapid testing and accessing the appropriate shelter options being made available,” he said, adding no one was being turned away, “but (they) are required to follow public health guidelines and isolate as needed, should they be determined to be COVID-positive.

“Instead of staging ill-advised media events, which risk further exposures, Mr. Dunn should concentrate on taking the steps necessary to re-open the Victoria Avenue site consistent with public health advice, which was provided to him by the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit last month.”

Dunn said he’s working closely with the medical officer of health and provided

Ahmed with a proposal Tuesday that he hopes will allow the mission to reopen several of its buildings.

“I’m stuck between a pandemic and homelessness,” he said. “And again, this doesn’t have to be political. It doesn’t have to be us versus them.”

jkotsis@postmedia.com

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