Health unit board approves drug consumption site compromise, agrees to look for new location

The board of health with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) voted unanimously to appoint Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino as the head of a committee to find a new site for the SafePoint supervised drug consumption site.

The current site at 101 Wyandotte St. E. can open as early as March if federal approval is granted. But, it will only be temporary until a new site is found. 

The current location for the SafePoint site is nearly finished renovations and retrofitting, and has local funding to operate until July, when the board estimates its application for provincial funding will go through. 

Dr. Ken Blanchette, CEO of WECHU, said the city has currently spent $775,000 on the Wyandotte Street location. He said the funds were provided through budget surpluses and not through taxpayer money. 

The WECHU signed a lease for the Wyandotte location until April 2025.

At Friday's meeting, Blanchette showed the board of health updated photos of the site, showing it is near completion, along with a floor plan of the site. 

He said the site will have areas for supervised drug consumption, and would also have other essential medical services like foot care, wound care, vaccine delivery, food support and referrals for addiction treatment. 

Agostino rethinks motion to stop SafePoint

Speaking with CBC News after the meeting, Agostino said he was pleased with the outcome and said that it provided options amid uncertainty about how things will go at the 101 Wyandotte St. E. location.

He said he'd like to see the site set up at the new location of the city's Homelessness and Housing Help Hub — which has not yet been selected — or near the Downtown Mission.

But he didn't rule out the idea of the committee ultimately sticking with the 101 Wyandotte St. E.  location.

In terms of the timeline for finding a new site, Agostino suggested work would get under way quickly.

"I'd like to start tomorrow working on a new site for a new location, something that will satisfy the needs of whoever's on the board,whoever's at the table" he said.

"And this time, the difference between this time and last time is everyone sits at the table this time."

Late last month, Agostino put forward, but later rescinded a motion that called on city council to withdraw its support for the SafePoint site.

He backed away from the motion on Monday after he reached a compromise with WECHU officials on opening the site temporarily until he and the committee find a new one. 

The final site selection will have to be approved by council. 

Agostino previously said he did not agree with the current site location across from the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel, and said the 101 Wyandotte St. E. site would be bad for businesses in the downtown core. 

"I wanted to make clear from day one, and sometimes it gets lost in the trees, is that I've always been in fully support of... Safepoint for downtown Windsor," he said. 

He said the conversation of whether the site should be on Wyandotte quickly changed to whether it should be scrapped altogether, and he said he appreciates that the board of health was able to discuss and compromise. 

At the meeting Friday, WECHU board of health chair and Ward 2 Coun. Fabio Costante said, "In negotiations and compromise you know you're in a good place when everyone is equally dissatisfied with the outcome."

Previously Costante advocated for opening the site on Wyandotte Street "many times."

"The last thing we want is to rescind our endorsement of the site and we're back to square one and now we've got a year, two years, three years — who knows, without this service in our community," he told CBC News on Tuesday.