Capital Funding Support for Housing Management Bodies
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Alberta Municipalities lobby the Government of Alberta to increase funding to Housing Management Bodies to alleviate the affordability crisis and provide funding for capital upkeep or replacement needed to sustain supportive living at senior lodges.
WHEREAS Housing Management Bodies (HMB’s) in the Alberta who provide supportive living facilities for seniors (lodges) are facing continual unanticipated increasing cost pressures including inflation, higher utility costs and interest rate increases that are heavily impacting budgets needed to keep sites operational; and
WHEREAS these costs are pressuring HMB’s operations causing deficits that require higher requisition requests as they try to balance capital repairs over and above operating expenses. The overall outcome is an impact to the affordability for residents; and
WHEREAS the Government of Alberta has announced the Affordability Action Plan designed to provide assistance to seniors facing affordability crisis, however, there is no assistance offered for supplies or works needed for capital maintenance of the actual lodges which are also negatively affected by the increased costs crisis; and
WHEREAS the Government of Alberta has previously provided selected organizations with capital maintenance level funding, however, this has reduced or is no longer available to HMB’s. HMB’s are in immediate and long-term need of this support to sustain and improve Alberta’s seniors’ facilities.
A recent presentation by our Housing Management Body (HMB), the Grande Spirit Foundation, highlighted the fact that all capital replacement funding is becoming the sole responsibility of the organization as lodges are not eligible for additional funding such as MSI or other regular grant contributions. Housing Foundations can typically access Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) for new facilities and capital maintenance via borrowing along with some provincial funding to complete new projects, but not for existing facilities. HMB’s throughout the province submit annual business plans to the province with capital renewal requests for existing and new facilities. These requests were funded through grants in the past, which assisted HMBs to prioritize and upgrade capital repairs as required. This grant funding for capital repairs is either no longer existent or insufficient to keep up to aging lodge infrastructure. The result is the Foundation either continues to raise rental rates to the maximum of residents’ income as per the Social Housing Regulation and further challenges our senior affordability or increases municipal requisitions which adds to the existing tax burden for municipal ratepayers. The Grande Spirit Foundation currently has over 1100 units with 1700 residents, more or less, and has approximately $90 million in capital budgets in planning to assist people in need of housing accommodation.