City says 51 people used Windsor's warming bus for shelter during its 1st weekend

Dozens of people used a recently launched program this weekend that sees a city bus travel around Windsor, Ont., overnight to help individualswith no stable housingstay warm.

"The individuals who were on that bus were very appreciative, very thankful,"said Andrew Daher, the city's commissioner of human and health services.

Daher said it happened late into the winter because the money for the project is coming from the federal government and it didn't arrive until the end of the year.

According to the city, 51 people used the bus during its first weekend.

The new mobile warming centre was announced last week and is available free to anyone experiencing homelessness. It operates from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday to Saturday, excluding holidays, until mid- to late April.

"The bus will run on a predetermined route, targeting core areas of the city, as well as stopping at emergency shelters and other drop-in programs with extended hours," city staff said in a statement.

The city also wanted to wait for the labour negotiations between Transit Windsor and unionized employees before moving ahead with the project.

"It's not that we didn't think of this, it was timing," Daher said.

Earlier this month, Kelly Goz, the city'sacting manager of homelessness and housing support, told CBC News that roughly 700 householdsin Windsor-Essex were facing homelessness.

The Downtown Mission of Windsor is one of the partners for the warming bus and helps staff it.

Mission spokesperson Matt Johnson said despite some of the spring-like temperatures recently, there are very chilly nights andonce thesun drops, it is still super cold.

"There are people who just spend nights outside for whatever reason," said Johnson. "Some of that has to do with service restrictions at the shelters, some of that has to do just by choice ... and we all knew there was this gap in services for a pretty considerable amount of people."

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Downtown Coun. Renaldo Agostino said that it's already creating a change noticed by people in the city's core.

"The business owners downtown are very appreciative," said Renaldo Agostino.

The city said the initiative is funded through a one-timefederal program.