The Member raises a good point. It’s always beneficial if we discuss the arrears and get the message out there, that there are a lot of people that have been coming to the LHOs and making arrangements to start working on their arrears. In most cases with the LHOs it could be as low... I mean, anything that they can pay a
month is usually welcome. We’ve seen cases where folks have started a repayment plan, they’ve honoured their commitment, they still are in some arrears but because they’ve honoured their commitment, they’ve been put back on the waiting list and a few of them have actually got back into public housing and are some of our best tenants now. I think there’s been great improvement here in our arrears and people willing to make the commitment to start paying it off. It’s still a challenge, obviously, but I think more and more we’re seeing out there that folks are serious about trying to write off their arrears, because they realize that it does prevent them in some cases from accessing some programs or getting back into public housing. I think they’ve come to realize that this is a commitment that they need to make. It has improved and we’re looking forward again to the coming year where we can see more of an improvement in the collection of arrears, rental arrears.
Mortgage arrears is still one we’re trying to work with the clients especially, because that is a huge concern when you’re $10 million in mortgage arrears. So we want to work with the clients. The LHOs and Housing Corporation are usually very flexible when people start wanting to make repayment plans. As long as they honour their commitment, then things will usually start falling into place for them. But there has been a great improvement and we’re looking forward to a bigger improvement in the coming year.