MSDSB reviewing their operating expenses and revenues

Published by: The Mid North Monitor
Author: Helen Morley
June 25, 2026

A May 21, 2026 review from the Man­it­oulin-Sud­bury Dis­trict Ser­vices Board (MSDSB) looked at their oper­at­ing per­form­ance and rev­enue, when it comes to com­munity hous­ing, over the past five years and what their pro­jec­ted cap­ital expendit­ures could be over the next five years.

The report com­piled by Lori Clark, dir­ector of integ­rated human ser­vices and Sherry Frost, integ­rated human ser­vices man­ager, took into prop­erty owned by the Dis­trict Ser­vices Board (DSB) across Man­it­oulin Island, Espan­ola, Webb­wood, Mas­sey, Chap­leau, War­ren, St. Charles and Noelville. In all but four prop­er­ties lis­ted, their aver­age oper­at­ing costs proved higher than the aver­age annual rental income.

Their Hous­ing Needs Assess­ment, was com­pleted this year, “to bet­ter under­stand the hous­ing needs and chal­lenges faced by res­id­ents throughout the ser­vice area in rela­tion to suit­able and afford­able hous­ing.”

This assess­ment poin­ted out key factors such as, “an aging pop­u­la­tion, increas­ing hous­ing instabil­ity and evolving com­munity needs that are driv­ing greater demand for access­ible, appro­pri­ately sized, and sup­port­ive hous­ing options.”

They also found that there was a lim­ited sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing, which was not likely to improve, and what was avail­able didn't often align with the needs of the people seek­ing hous­ing. The demand for one-bed­room and fam­ily sized units could not be met by the avail­able sup­ply.

DSB also recog­nized that com­munity hous­ing, “con­tin­ues to play a crit­ical role within the local hous­ing sys­tem; however a sig­ni­fic­ant por­tion of the DSB's hous­ing stock is aging and requires ongo­ing repair, renewal and rein­vest­ment to pre­serve exist­ing sup­ply and main­tain safe and func­tional liv­ing envir­on­ments.”

One of the main imped­i­ments to afford­able com­munity hous­ing is the rising oper­a­tional costs, which have, “con­tin­ued to increase due to infla­tion­ary pres­sures, rising util­ity and insur­ance costs, increased main­ten­ance require­ments, and the grow­ing com­plex­ity asso­ci­ated with main­tain­ing aging build­ings.”

Besides the man­dat­ory oper­a­tional costs, the DSB also looked at the pro­jec­ted costs neces­sary to replace some of the major build­ing com­pon­ents, such as roof­ing, mech­an­ical sys­tems, win­dows, and access­ib­il­ity upgrades. The Com­munity Hous­ing Port­fo­lio Fin­ance Sum­mary, “indic­ated that pro­jec­ted cap­ital require­ments sig­ni­fic­antly exceed cur­rent reserve con­tri­bu­tions.”

They are con­cerned that without addi­tional invest­ment the required main­ten­ance needs will con­tinue to grow, “res­ult­ing in higher future costs, ser­vice dis­rup­tions, and poten­tial reduc­tions in usable hous­ing stock.”

The report shows that sev­eral of their prop­er­ties have oper­a­tional costs, due to rising expendit­ures, which are expec­ted to con­tinue to exceed the rental income.

The DSB staff offered two recom­mend­a­tions to their board when it comes to the cost of com­munity hous­ing. The first one was to ini­ti­ate, “a com­pre­hens­ive review of oper­at­ing expenses across the Com­munity Hous­ing port­fo­lio to bet­ter under­stand cur­rent cost drivers, oper­a­tional pres­sures, and the long-term fin­an­cial sus­tain­ab­il­ity of exist­ing assets.”

The second recom­mend­a­tion is that their fin­ance com­mit­tee con­sider future fund­ing adjust­ments for the 2027 budget while staff con­tin­ues to seek fund­ing from all three levels of gov­ern­ment, “to sup­port the pre­ser­va­tion, repair and mod­ern­iz­a­tion of com­munity hous­ing assets throughout the ser­vice area to main­tain safe, sus­tain­able, and afford­able hous­ing for res­id­ents.”