Robert C. McLeod

We do have some percentage where adults are living with seniors. Obviously, if their household income is low, then most seniors would be paying minimum rent. I think on average we have about 90 percent of our seniors that are going to be paying minimum rent starting September 1st, so obviously it’s half of what we were initially going to charge, and then July 1st of next year we’ll go to full implementation. We do have some numbers; I don’t have them with me. I will provide them to committee. Ninety percent of our seniors would be paying minimum rent.

We already know what the community is looking for. Our officials will sit down and have a discussion with them. I’m always happy to meet with the leadership of any community, and if the need arises, then I would be pleased to meet with the leadership of Enterprise. Right now their officials and our officials are trying to iron out some of the details and we look forward to the results of their meetings.

We have communicated our desire to work with the community and they have communicated their desire to look at some of the options of establishing their own water treatment plant. The letter that we’ve received from them, they had laid out some options, and we would like to sit down with them and work on some of those options. If there needs to be some changes made to the way the community is funded, we would have to look at that also. They’ve made the initial communication that they have a desire to establish their own water treatment plant.

We do have some right now that we allocate to some communities that apply for it. It helps them with equipment mostly. We have to understand that there’s a huge liability issue in trying to provide emergency service in a lot of communities. If they’re not qualified, then that would put more residents at risk and put the communities or the individuals in a liability issue. So we have to explore all those options.

There is $200,000 now that is allocated to a number of communities. As the Member said, we only have three communities that have taken us up on it, but a lot of this is to help with...

Mr. Speaker, we could have asked them to report once a year. That may not have been enough to satisfy some Members. We could have asked them to report 12 times a year. We thought for the first part, this would be a good starting point. If there are other options we can explore in the future such as less reporting once things get rolled out really good, then there may not be a need for further reporting. I am sure the communities will let us know that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t say it is to keep tabs on the communities. I would call it work closely with the communities to ensure that public funds are spent the way they should be. It is more of a communication tool. We want to make sure that public funds are well looked after. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we do keep tabs on the community spending. We work with communities. This here is just to see if this accountability framework is meeting their needs. Is it working for them? Is communication between the community and MACA? Are there ways we can improve? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because we have given the communities a lot more responsibility and a lot more financing, the purpose of the accountability framework is to work closely with the communities to have a pretty transparent system of how that money is dealt with. Thank you.

Well, we listened to what Members had to say. We listened to what some of the concerns were for the seniors out there. We thought this would be an adjustment period, because to go from zero to $70, $75 or $80 dollars, as was the original intent, we thought this would be an easier adjustment to graduate up to the higher rent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Leading up to the new rent scale, all the tenants, including seniors, will have an opportunity to meet with their local LHO and they will be given an indication at the time of what their rent can be expected to be. With the rent scale change, it will be July 1st. With the seniors, now with the new implementation of September 1st, there will be an opportunity for them to work with the local LHOs and give them an indication of what their rent is going to be.