Morris Assisted Living postponed after U.S. tariff threat

Advertisement

Advertise with us

An open house to reveal the design and cost of a new assisted living facility for seniors in Morris is postponed indefinitely due to political and cost uncertainty.

“We have a design company that’s done some design work for us, and then we’ve hired a construction manager to do some more work on costing to try to get a handle on the numbers.”

“We were so supposed to have that for our meeting this week. Unfortunately the costing is proving to be a significant challenge because of all the uncertainties in the political world — potential tariffs, the lack of leadership of Canada for a moment or two until the Liberals elect a leader and get back into government, and likely then there’ll be an election. And of course south of the border there’s so many uncertainties,” said Town of Morris Coun. Chris Hamblin.

She sits on the board of Red River Support Housing Inc., the not-for-profit formed by the Town, RM of Morris and RM of Montcalm in January 2023 to enhance housing, social, economic and community services in the region.

The first project for them was connecting this proposed assisted living facility to the existing arena and multiplex in Morris.

But the looming threat of tariffs from newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump and the uncertainty of Canada’s response as the governing Liberals choose a new prime minister, combined with construction costs that were already rising and unstable, has the board wanting to avoid giving a pricetag that may not be close to reality.

“What we’re finding is that the costing is just way too difficult to come up with a reliable number. And so rather than go to the public with a design and costing that was questionable or uncertain at best, we decided that we would wait,” explained Hamblin.

That does not mean work has stopped on the project.

“In the meantime we’ll be looking at other avenues to see if we can bring our costs down. Right now we’re talking about a steel structure, we may look at wood if that produces savings that would be worth looking at.

“So we’re not abandoning the project, we’re merely stepping back and going to look at other options, continue to search to make sure that the project is going to be feasible, acceptable and continue to move in the right direction for the residents of the area,” said Hamblin.

It is hoped that the facility could have 50 units that fill the need of senior housing that fits in between living completely independently and residing at a personal care home.

“We did a survey in the three municipalities and the evidence is overwhelming that there is a need for this,” said Hamblin.

“In fact, we’re targeting 50 units, in another five, 10 years we probably more than double that. But can’t justify it at the moment so 50 is a somewhere in between number that can serve the needs today and can manage into the future as well.

The survey showed the desire for assisted living that had both a sense of independence with some home care service.

“Without the assisted living facility so many people stay in their own homes a little bit too long and then have to go straight to a care home. Where as if we had the assisted living, it’s that in between step that allows them to manage at a new home with maybe some home care and just knowing that there are people around. And you might prolong that move maybe indefinitely, but certainly from several months to several years by being able to have those assists here,” said Hamblin.

That would mean people can keep living in their community.

“Older people from the community — and when I say community I’m talking from the RM of Morris, RM of Montcalm and the town of Morris — have moved away because they haven’t got the level of care they need here. And so we’re seeing people moving to Winnipeg, to Morden, to Niverville, probably some to Steinbach.

“They’re choosing places that make sense for their financial status, makes sense for maybe where their families are, but not where they really want to be. They want to be where their community is, where their friends that they’ve been sharing coffee with and so on,” she added.

The aspiration of having shovels in the ground by this fall is unlikely to come true, but Hamblin said the board is continuing work behind the scenes to be ready when they can present a plan to the public.

“We just kind of hit a little bump in the road right now and felt it was wise to let some of the political realities sort themselves out, and then we’ll have more certainty on how we’ll proceed,” she said.

Report Error Submit a Tip

Local

LOAD MORE