Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Koe regarding the responsibility for collection of damage deposits. The responsibility to pay for damages to rental units belongs first to the tenant. When the local housing organization makes repairs, the money is paid out of the maintenance budget. A bill is then sent to the tenant. When the bill is paid, the money is put back into the maintenance budget.
Sometimes a bill is not paid, and this means that the money from the maintenance budget will not be returned. This is a problem because it can mean that some maintenance work cannot be done because the budget has run out.
The corporation helps the local housing organizations to collect for these damages, and encourages LHOs to act to prevent damage to these homes.
The corporation's funding of local housing organizations allows for the LHOs to recover the money from the corporation for uncollectible tenant damages after every effort has been made by the LHOs to collect from the tenants. This makes sure that other tenants are not penalized because someone damages their unit and cannot pay for the repairs. I want to make sure that good tenants still have good homes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.