Volunteers worked to count every person on Windsor's streets. Here's what they saw
CBC
About three dozen people gathered in a nondescript room Wednesday night. Their task was getting acquainted with the surveys they'd spend the next three hours administering, fanning out across Windsor's streets in a bid to check in with every person without housing that night.
Be comfortable and casual, they were told. Get down on their level. Don't worry if they don't want to talk to you, you can move along. Call us if you need anything. You're not going to end homelessness tonight, so don't put too much pressure on it.
These volunteers were all here undertaking a "point-in-time" count. It aims to measure how many — and why — people are on the street across Windsor and Essex County at any given point. It's the first point-in-time count for the region in three years.
Whitney Kitchen was one of those in the room. She's a housing co-ordinator for the City of Windsor and has worked in the sector for years.
As teams started heading out, she grabbed some clipboards and tote bags and handed them to Andrew Daher, her survey partner for the evening. He's not exactly her peer here — she joked that Daher, the commissioner for health and human services and Windsor's top authority on the issue, is "her boss's boss's boss."
After that, they started walking.
It didn't take long before Kitchen and Daher encountered the first group of people: They were standing outside a downtown grocery store.
Gently, she approached with a simple greeting: "Hey guys."
From there, a brief explanation. She works with the city. They're doing a survey tonight, some of it federally mandated. It's gathering data so the city can provide better services to people on the streets.
Most nodded, and Kitchen asked more questions: Where did you sleep last night, and where are you sleeping tonight? If they had housing, she thanked them and moved on. If not, she asked more questions.
Taking about 10 minutes to finish, the survey dived deep: What brought you to Windsor? When was the last time you had stable housing — like, your-name-on-the-lease stable? What brought you to Windsor and how many times have you been homeless in the last year, or the last three? Do you take any prescriptions? What chronic health conditions do you have? What's your involvement in the justice system? Were you in child protection as a kid?
Sometimes, the answers were long. Sometimes, brief.
"Do you have any chronic health conditions?"
"Probably."
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