To: Mayor Drew Dilkens and Members of Windsor City Council From: Welcome Centre Shelter for Women & Families
Date: July 24th, 2026
Subject: Supplementary Information to Council Report: C 101/2026, Item No. 11.7
Balancing System-Wide Municipal Capacity with the Essential Need for Gendered Spaces
To begin, the Centre shares gratitude to Jennifer Tanner and the Housing and Children’s Services Team for their work on Council Report C 101/2026. Below is perspective on the recommendation to delay review of a funding request until the 2027 budget cycle. While we acknowledge the thorough administrative work compiled by city staff, we must address a fundamental shortcoming in the report’s framing: its recommendation to defer action misjudges the current realities facing our community and the impacts of inaction. Deferral is no longer a neutral administrative choice; it is an active decision on municipal gender equality efforts that carries compounding costs to the community.
Regarding Provided Turnaway Data
A purely quantitative metric tracking turnaways treats homelessness as a gender-neutral condition; it is not. The report presents turnaway data as focused on unique and named individuals within the HIFIS system, downplaying the high volume of anonymous calls taken daily and annually. These represent missed opportunities to engage in community-level homelessness prevention work due to the limitations of the Homelessness Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS). It also fails to discuss the impact that sunsetting eight gendered bed spaces at the Centre has had on turnaway volume.
In the two months before the Centre closed eight additional beds for women on May 25th, 2026, the Centre logged 125 turnaway calls. In the two months since closure of those beds that number increased to 692, a 453% increase in turnaway calls in the past 60 days. This increase occurs while administration notes no urgency or unique surge in turnaways at the Centre year over year, modeling an administrative acceptance of turnaways as a gender neutral state of service delivery rather than a created condition that can be responded to with gendered services. The report notes the Centre as having a 99% occupancy rate annually, turning away 219 named individual women. That is 278% more women turned away than the co-ed shelter (58 noted), which notes a 78% women’s occupancy rate and often has noted women’s spaces.
Data tells a story, and in this case, it is outlining what research has confirmed for decades, that gendered spaces are in demand and women will choose not to access co-ed spaces when gendered spaces are unavailable. Multiple city councillors requested to know if data was captured on where women+ go when turned away from the Centre. The Centre has been hand capturing this data since the June meeting and answers range from “in my vehicle” to “public bathrooms” and “outside of H4 but not inside” to “other shelters because I have no choice, but I will call back daily until a women’s bed is free”. The answers show our community that systemic violence, trauma, fear, and anxiety force women and gender-diverse individuals into dangerous survival strategies that only prolong homelessness. The placement of gendered
beds within any system is a municipal decision that should align with council’s stated desire for increased gender equality in our community.
Regarding Focus on System over Gendered Space Capacity
The report uses a heavy focus on system capacity as a marker of availability, but also accessibility. We caution council to consider the limits of aggregate metrics. We understand that administrative staff naturally rely on macro-level data when planning infrastructure, shelter, drop-in spaces and programs, looking at aggregate system capacity as total beds. The Centre continues to work to educate council, and the community at large that a system can boast theoretical surplus capacity while completely failing the vulnerable populations it is meant to protect.
System capacity measures volume, but it does not measure safety, dignity, or accessibility. For women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals navigating homelessness, mixed-gender and “total bed count” data does not equal true service accessibility. High level system numbers are misleading if a mixed-gender facility runs under capacity because a distinct demographic, women+, feel unsafe entering it. True efficiency is achieved when capacity matches actual lived comfort and safety requirements. Allocating protected gendered funding, spaces, and programming within community programs and emergency infrastructure ensures that care is genuinely accessible to those we know are carrying disproportionate safety burdens.
Regarding Overall Funding Within Homelessness Services
The administrative report evaluates the organization’s request through a lens of incremental risk aversion and short-term financial balancing. It portrays an organization seeking to partner with council to deepen municipal investment in gendered services as an organizational “emergency hand out” rather than what it is- a request for the municipality of the City of Windsor to strategically invest 5% of their noted $4 million municipal contribution towards maintaining and growing women’s services for low-income women+ and families in a municipality with the 5th highest income inequality in Canada. The decision will show the municipality’s strategic and thoughtful investment in community-driven, evidence-based efforts towards gender equality, at all levels.
Regarding Financial Costs and Noted Risk to Family Space
Discussion with administration specifically confirmed the organization’s commitment to balancing the needs of women’s spaces and family units. Contrary to what is written in the report, the Centre would add additional beds to the organization while not decreasing spaces available to families if needed (though families have not hit capacity in over 16 months). We remain as committed as administration to avoiding motel overages for families, as we understand the risks and poor service quality the model creates, along with the financial concerns that are the focus of administration’s role.
Failing to fund both the rising cost of living for a community provider who has received stagnant funding for 5 years, and increased service options is a false economy. When the Centre lacks resources, the burden is inevitably downloaded onto high-cost municipal and provincial emergency systems. This includes higher call volumes to policing services and paramedic services, longer shelter stays, increased turnaways that rise hidden homelessness and encampment levels, less ability to intake the growing population of women experiencing chronic homelessness and/or those presenting with complex health concerns from area hospitals, higher staff turnover, and degraded service quality that would have our community taking a step backwards in our service excellence. Maintaining robust funding for frontline community partners actively prevents crises before they require intensive emergency response and frees
the Centre to place donations and philanthropic support where it is needed most- to programs receiving zero government funding but supporting homelessness response efforts in Windsor.
$192,000 invested sustainably in the Centre women’s beds and services, while responding to a known and continuing structural deficit, directly allows the organization to move those funds to expansion of donation-based programs that support responding to homelessness. Donations currently allocated to managing the deficit of government funded programs can be immediately redirected to programs such as the community’s sole children’s and family case management, that supported the system in realizing a 94% school registration rate for kids experiencing homelessness. It would also allow for agency growth and program expansion, such as expanded supports for kids in shelter experiencing homelessness, supports to the LGTBQ2S+ population who remain under-served, agency strategic projects related to building more deeply affordable housing in community for women+ and families exiting shelter, or deepening our ties and supports within the county, where hidden homelessness is known to have disproportionately impact women+ and families.
Your decision today is on using robust reserves to bridge gendered services through the remaining 4-5 months of the 2026 municipal year, at a pro-rated cost that would be approximately $60,000. The report treats the status quo as a zero-cost option. In reality, delaying this decision inflates future social costs and has already incurred costs. The Centre has already lowered beds, vacated positions, and lost momentum that carries costs to rebuild and delays timelines of support even longer. As municipal costs rise year-over-year, kicking the decision down the road guarantees a more expensive intervention later. A decision today would have the Centre actively working towards having beds and crucial positions back up and running within 30 days.
Additional Cautions
The report notes two regional programs delivered by internal city staff that are supported through this budget: the Emergency Rent Assistance (ERA) and a team of social workers. From the perspective of a community provider, allocating funds away from partners and community and to an internal social work team outlines a troubling trend in our municipal budgeting strategy that has direct impact on this conversation: the increasing shift toward funding internal, city-run social and community initiatives rather than maintaining and expanding investments in established community-based non-profit partners. Insourcing social service delivery runs counter to effective governance and weakens the fabric of our local support network.
Community partners focus on creating deep community and individual service user trust and specialized competency that municipal bureaucracies simply cannot replicate. When the city builds parallel internal programs, it duplicates infrastructure while failing to leverage the specialized knowledge and skill that community-based operators have cultivated over decades. Municipal administration is built for governance, regulatory compliance, and large-scale infrastructure maintenance. It is not meant for nimble, front-line social interventions. Shifting funds inward forces the city to absorb recurring staffing, human resources, and overhead costs that permanently bloat our municipal ledger. When council approves funding internal program delivery, it replaces a cost-efficient and flexible ecosystem with expensive, rigid municipal bureaucracy that lacks fiscal flexibility.
Decisions like this are nuanced and not without careful consideration. Municipal governments can play a leading role in helping to achieve gender equality by purposefully building communities that respond to women’s specific needs. We urge City Council to reject the recommendation of delay and exercise its
leadership by making a decisive choice about the importance and positioning of gendered services at Monday’s meeting.
On behalf of the organization, thank-you for your time, your service and your continued work to make the Windsor community a safe, supportive, and resilient place for all your constituents.
In Solidarity,
Lady Laforet
Executive Director
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