Article content
The mayor’s chief of staff is questioning if the Downtown Mission leadership can keep their homeless patrons safe, in the wake of a rising COVID caseload and an “extraordinary” requirement that they sign a document pledging to follow a long list of precautions.
“It’s remarkable that the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has asked the Downtown Mission to sign a contract to meet the bare minimum health standards that all other service providers have committed themselves to for the past year,” Andrew Teliszewsky said in a Monday statement that follows the mission welcoming patrons into a temporary shelter at the old library building last week in defiance of health unit orders and in the midst of city efforts to establish a temporary shelter at the downtown aquatic centre. The number of people testing positive from the library has risen from five to eight, he said.