Downtown Mission to reduce, eliminate services after fundraising falls short

Despite raising more than $3.5 million in 2019, Windsor's Downtown Mission announced on Wednesday that it failed to meet its funding goals and will scale back a number of services it offers. 

According to executive director Rev. Ron Dunn, the mission is set to reduce staff in charge of running its community dental services program, as well as make operational changes to its kitchen. 

As of Feb. 17, Dunn said, the Mission will shift to a "housing first model," in which staff will focus on finding permanent housing for the homeless. They've also eliminated the chat and text service at the Distress Centre as of Jan. 31.  

"It was too costly for us to continue," said Dunn, who added that the text and chat services provided support to approximately 6,000 people annually. 

"As long as we remain unfunded from any level of government, it's difficult for us to match the rising cost of operation."

Dunn said he believes it's possible that the Mission failed to achieve its funding goals as a result of public perception to do with the the organization's upcoming move to the Windsor Public Library's old Central Branch location at 850 Ouellette Ave. 

"Some people think, 'Oh, they already have all that money,'" he said. "Well, that's not true."

Downtown Mission 'cut from everything,' says Dunn

As a result of not meeting 2019's funding goals, Dunn said the Mission was forced to look at every individual service it offers in order to determine what could be saved — and what needed to go. 

"We looked at everything individually and cut from everything," he said. "We looked at our food costs … we went for quotes and got new suppliers and things like that. Everything was affected."

It was too costly for us to continue.- Rev. Ron Dunn, Executive Director, Downtown Mission

Still, Dunn said he's hopeful that the mission will one day be able to reintroduce the services it was forced to scale back and eliminate. 

He said it would cost at least an additional $1 million — plus the $3.5 million raised in 2019 — to "put it all back together and also give me the staffing levels that we need."

Province-wide text, chat services still available 

Though the Downtown Mission's Distress Centre won't offer text and chat support, Dunn said the phone lines will remain in operation. 

"That phone's been there since 1968," he said. "It was originally funded through somebody else and then we took it on three years ago. So we're committed to keeping that as long as possible."

Mary-Jo Kovacs, director of advocacy, outreach and education with the Downtown Mission, also clarified that text and chat services will continue to be available through the province. 

Instead, the Mission is only eliminating its own program, which was staffed by more than 50 "highly trained individuals," according to Kovacs. 

"This decision was many, many months and many conversations in the making," Kovacs said. "This was not an easy decision for us, because our responders are key."

Amanda Marinovich, a volunteer at the Downtown Mission's Distress Centre and one of the people who staffed the text and chat lines, said the program elimination means individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 — the largest demographic that relies on text and chat — won't be available to seek help. 

"That is how they communicate, through text message," she said. "They're unwilling to call in the service, and they said that to us. They said if they didn't have the texting option, they wouldn't have reached out for help."

The Downtown Mission will continue to offer its Fresh Food Recovery Program, thanks to donations from three local business leaders. The program distributes food to 64 local schools and organizations.