Although not ideal, Mayor Keith Hobbs says if the city has to cover the estimated $3 million cost of the Safe Homes Program, then that’s what they will do.
The May flooding affected thousands of residents when an unprecedented amount of rain fell on the city. Many victims of that flood required assistance because they had no or inadequate insurance so the city established the Safe Homes Program that went in to clear out basements and make repairs to hot water tanks and other home essentials.
But the cost to do is estimated to be $3 million and could go up even more once the program wraps up at the end of September.
City administration has started looking to see if the cost could be covered under the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program but if it fails to do so then the cost could fall onto the city.
Hobbs said it’s not ideal if the city has to foot that bill but at the end of the day the program was to help people.
“We committed to fix people’s homes and we chose to do that as a city and we may have to live with that,” Hobbs said. “Is it ideal? No, certainly not but I think we have to look after our citizens first. That’s number one. It’s a disaster we’ve never seen before and portions we never seen before and we have to look after our citizens.”
Hobbs wasn’t sure where the money would be coming from and said city manager Tim Commisso would probably have a better idea if it would be taken from the city’s budget or from the Disaster Relief Fund.
But At-Large Coun. Rebecca Johnson is uncomfortable with the price tag and says she wants to know more and will be speaking with city’s administration about it.
Johnson believed home owners without insurance would be covered by the Safe Homes program, which would use money from the Disaster Relief Fund.
But if the costs actually fall onto the city, then Johnson says another discussion will be needed .
“That is a huge amount of money,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to pay it because we’ve done it. We don’t have any choice at this point in time. We have to pay the companies that did whatever services they did. We don’t have a lot of choice but to pay the bill.”
Johnson added she hopes that higher levels of government will be able to cover that cost.
“I don’t want to be paying $3 million if we don’t have to,” she said.
