BOC Hears Community Services Report

HARRISON – In her November address to the Clare County Board of Commissioners, Community Services Director Lori Phelps provided a cumulative update on the services provided through the departments under her prevue. She began with the end-of-fiscal year numbers.

Code Enforcement: $240,424 in building permits (which was $76,424 more than the previous year); $110,991 in electrical permits ($26,000 more than the previous year); $74,253 in plumbing and mechanical permits ($18,000 more than the previous year); 124 new addresses issued (up from 87 from previous year). Phelps said this is the second contract year for zoning and enforcement for the City of Clare Code of Ordinances, for which the department receives $18,000 per year from the city.

“This time, every year, we update our website,” Phelps said, noting that was being worked on at the time.

The numbers for Senior Services included: 107,329 meals served (99,913 were home-delivered).

“We were able to welcome our congregate back in the early summer,” Phelps said. “However, many are really nervous to come back, so we’re still having the curbside pickup for them, if they would like.”

Care hours for seniors included: 26,276 hours of in-home care, which includes assistance with personal hygiene, housekeeping, grocery shopping, relief for caregivers and general activities of daily living.

Phelps said that caregivers spent 2,901 hours of coordinating services for seniors, from obtaining meals, in-home health, coordinating home repairs, heating assistance, medical transportation, prescription medication assistance and durable medical equipment.

“Our caseworkers see now about 50 new clients a month,” she said. “We had 595 new clients just this past year. We were also able to help recently eight families of grandparents raising their grandchildren with school backpacks, school supplies, food, Kindles.”

Phelps said one of the issues currently being faced by Senior Service is food cost, bringing food costs up more than $48,000 from last year. She said that is up $30,000 over the previous year, but the cost in that year had included two meals for home-bound seniors. This year, there is only one meal being served.

“There’s nothing we can do about that,” she said. “We do have a problem getting certain items now.”

Phelps said the gasoline expense for meals-on-wheels has also increased, and cited the October 2020 bill as $565, while the October 2021 bill was more than $1,030.

“We also are having an issue with adequate staffing,” Phelps said. “Nobody wants to work, so that is a problem for us right now – we just can’t find people that want to work.”

Senior Services revenue was up from the same time last year, to the tune of $1,768,000-plus. Total expenses were $1,691,000.

Phelps closed out her data by describing how grant loan repayment revenues were being used to the betterment of lives and therefore the community. She said program income included about $46,000 from the previous Community Development Block Grant which is for renovation of homes for low-income or moderate-income individuals.

“There’s over $1 million out in loans,” Phelps said. “That’s been for years past, and we received $45,000 back from those loans. So, we put that back into the community – we replaced two roofs with that, a septic system, three wells, two furnaces installed, and a handicapped shower.”