Rent increase raising concerns for southeast Calgary support centre – Calgary | 24CA News
An group that helps hundreds of Calgarians annually is now in want of assist itself, with fears an incoming lease enhance might jeopardize the providers they supply.
The Southeast Calgary Resource Centre has been working of their area in a Calgary Housing Company (CHC) constructing for greater than 20 years; a service offered by the Millican-Ogden Community Association.
The centre offers providers like meals assist, housing assist, clothes donations, in addition to help with revenue assist, job searching and constructing resumes.
Originally designed to assist individuals dwelling within the Millican-Ogden communities, the useful resource centre has expanded its attain to anybody within the metropolis in want.
“We help just shy of 10,000 people per year out of this little space,” Millican-Ogden Community Association president John McDonald advised Global News.
McDonald mentioned the group is operating out of meals quicker than earlier years as demand continues to extend for assist organizations, and that demand has begun to stretch skinny their capability to supply helps.
“There are folks who are out there wondering if they’re going to feed their kids tomorrow, and we can’t help everyone, as hard as we try,” McDonald mentioned.
For 15 years, the centre had a lease settlement with the Calgary Housing Company to pay nominal lease, however that month-to-month lease cost elevated to $550 in 2018.
The Millican-Ogden Community Association and Calgary Housing Company are at present renegotiating a two-year lease with extensions, with lease set to extend to $700 monthly.
According to McDonald, the lease enhance will divert funds and put extra strain on the providers the centre offers.
“Our funding sources give us so much money per year and they’ve told us to ‘spend no more money on rent than what we’ve said you can already spend, because we want our money spent on programming,’” McDonald mentioned.
“Every dime that we spend on rent is not spent on delivering a service to someone.”
The Calgary Housing Company mentioned it too is a non-profit group that makes use of the lease to fund the operations of its numerous inexpensive housing complexes.
CHC performing president Bo Jiang mentioned negotiations on a lease enhance have been ongoing for 3 years, however “stopped” in November, with the lease enhance reflecting the group’s want to interrupt even with operational prices of the constructing.
“The biggest thing in terms of our operational effectiveness is to ensure the lowest cost for residents on a day-to-day basis,” Jiang advised Global News.
“Our partners that partner with us, the expectation from our perspective, is that they will be at break even (costs)… because whatever the cost is to run the operation and administer the housing needs, is appropriately charged.”
Jiang mentioned the rise can even assist cowl prices of future repairs that have been recognized in a latest engineering constructing situation evaluation, in an effort to keep away from a “large lump sum cost” to the group down the street.
“We need to make sure we manage these properties in such a way that we are not costing anything more than needs to,” Jiang mentioned.
“The break-even cost is a major factor for us.”
Late final yr, the Millican-Ogden Community Association wrote a letter to Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek, CHC, and metropolis council to request rental reduction for 5 years.
That letter outlined restricted choices for the centre to make up the additional cash required for lease together with: diverting funding from programming, cut back salaries and staffing on the centre, divert revenues from rental charges at the area people enviornment, or hand over duty of the group to the City of Calgary.
“Our current extension, and we’re told it’s our last extension, ends on May 31,” McDonald mentioned. “So we’re into the six- or seven-week crunch time.”
Jiang mentioned CHC companions with many companies and non-profits in its buildings with many on agreements that pay “break even fees,” with the hope an settlement will be reached with the Southeast Community Resource Centre.
“We would love for the relationship to continue with this partnership, because I don’t think there’s a doubt in terms of the value that they provide to the community of Ogden,” Jiang mentioned.
“For us, that’s the ideal outcome.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
