Members of the beautification committee at Fellowship Village were recognized for their work Tuesday with a letter of appreciation. Seniors Lyle Kimberly and Andy Yoner, back row, are flanked on the left by Stephanie Miller, CEO of Lloydminster Region Housing Group, standing left, and board member Michael Diachuk, right. Sitting on a new bench are Nolda Wood and Edna Naylor. Various sponsors helped get the work done. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
The Lloydminster Region Housing Group finds itself in a Catch-22 situation with approved funding for capital repair projects at seniors housing, but no one to do the work.
LRHG CEO, Stephanie Miller, touched on the dilemma during a progress report at the Sept. 12 meeting of the Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society at the Legacy Centre.
“If I don’t use it, I lose it,” said Miller, referring to capital dollars from the Alberta government, which are project specific.
“For example, I have some dollars specifically for some sewer lines, which means some people have some black water in their space,” she said.
“I have the dollars. I can’t get a contractor to come in and I’ve engaged Lloydminster and beyond. We’ve gone as far as Saskatoon to try to bring people in.”
Miller says the economic reality is contractors are short-staffed.
“It’s hard to find people to do the work. The ones that do have the work are on bigger projects,” she explained.
Miller says a priority list of repairs flowed from the results of a tenant survey she just released along with staff conversations with senior tenants over the past year.
LRHG has forwarded a petition from residents at Padua Place and Fellowship Place to the Ministry of Seniors Community and Social Services to lobby for some needed repairs.
Padua has some major issues with larger potholes in the parking lot that Miller says needs, “a total redo.”
The petition from Fellowship calls attention to rebuilding sidewalks and diverting pooling water.
“That’s a huge capital project because the sidewalks have sunk,” said Miller who emphasizes major concerns require large capital dollars.
“That’s a lot of that work I’m doing directly with the Ministry based on the feedback we’re hearing and we’re getting some forward movement.”
Miller reports Padua had a step repaired after a tenant had a fall.
She says she could move forward with other capital work if contractors were willing to do the work.
“I’m working directly with contractors saying, ‘hey I have dollars, can you do the work’,” she said.
Miller says they can’t get someone to come in and assess the scope of some repairs to elevators that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the government to okay.
“We are at the mercy of availability. The ministry has been responsive to me and has been good with those priority projects that need to be addressed. It really is the issue of engaging contractors,” she said.
Miller fully appreciates it’s hard for contractors to find employees during these times.
“They’re looking for the big contract jobs so they secure employees for the entire year,” she said.
Despite the frustration, Miller says they have made some noticeable improvement in all types of housing in Lloydminster, Kitscoty and Marwayne this year.
“Are we where we should be, no,” she said.
“We continue to work closely as a team as well as the tenants to identify what the priorities are and work through them one at a time.”
Every month, Leslie Lorenz, LRHG operations director, meets with various social tenant committees, answers questions, gives feedback and meets individuals one-on-one.
“Snow removal was a concern in the past, especially because of the amount of snow we had last year, so this year we are looking at new equipment to help make snow removal easier and more effective,” said Miller.
She says they have also had conversations about needing grippier bars in some tenant bathrooms and they are looking at installing some heat tape at Knox Manor to prevent ice build-up around windows.
“I am really excited to say each of the communities have come together and have built their own social committees and have really shared a voice to the point where they are even writing a petition,” said Miller.
“It is excellent to see the engagement from the tenants today. I welcome it wholeheartedly.”
Millers says they are generally pleased with the survey response but there’s more work to do.
“We’re hoping for more next year but that was a good start,” she said.
“The general theme is that some respondents don’t feel heard in regard to their concerns which is why you see Leslie in the community every month.”
