Organizations across the developmental services sector are appealing for financial support from the provincial government.
Community Living Sarnia-Lambton (CLSL) Executive Director Corry Thomas said the majority of their funding, just over 73 per cent, comes from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.
He said once over the last 30 years they've seen a three to four per cent adjustment to their budget, while the cost of living has risen 60 per cent.
"It's not hard to do the math on that," said Thomas. "One can only get so much water out of stone, and we're reaching that point now. And not just us, all of the organizations doing this work across the province," said Thomas. "So we have come together, it started in the fall, and we have our 'Five to Survive Campaign" lobbying for a five per cent increase across the sector to our base budget."
Thomas said some clients in the 24/7 care would be considered underfunded because as they've aged, their care needs have changed, become more complex or their disability has become more significant while there has been no adjustment to the amount of funding CLSL receives to support them.
"Obviously we're never going to discharge any one of those 80 plus clients that live in our care," said Thomas. "But it's becoming a priority for us and it may require for us to look at some of our other services, and we may have to divest out of some areas. Looking at it from the perspective that we may need to shrink to grow."
He said donations also fell off during the pandemic, and CLSL has recently launched a donations committee to reach out to the community for added support.
"We are looking to re-engage and looking at alternative funding, looking at donations and separately looking at revenue generation," said Thomas. "So looking at our fees for our services. I would say our fees are probably going to have to go up because our costs have gone up."
Thomas recently highlighted the challenges CLSL is facing during a Golden K Kiwanis Club meeting.
You can watch the presentation posted to the Kiwanis Club of Sarnia-Lambton Golden K's website.