Seniors’ homes | Costs are still rising

(Quebec) Construction costs for seniors’ homes jump 19%, or $430 million, due to overheating in the construction industry, learned The Press. Never mind, the Legault government will wipe the bill of 2.8 billion, determined to deliver in the fall the 2600 accommodation places promised in the election campaign.

Fanny Levesque
The Press

Tommy Chouinard
The Press

It is going ahead with all calls for tenders for the construction of seniors’ homes despite “the receipt of results […] more unfavorable in the context of overheating”, confirms the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) to The Press.

“As a result, it was necessary to increase the envelope initially planned,” she adds. Quebec is revising its budget upwards, increasing it from 2.36 to 2.79 billion “considering the results of calls for tenders received” for the construction of buildings.

The SQI had canceled a total of nine calls for tenders at the start of the year because of excessively high prices. The exercise ultimately proved more costly due to runaway inflation and overheating in the construction industry, which worsened with global economic uncertainty.

“The context of overheating of the market, combined with the shortage of labor in the construction industry, as well as the rise in the price of materials are exerting strong pressure on construction costs, whether in Quebec or more broadly in Canada, and even around the world,” observes the SQI.

At the beginning of the month, the Minister responsible for Seniors and Caregivers, Marguerite Blais, spoke of a totally unpredictable economic situation: “Nobody could foresee that there would be a war in Ukraine, nobody could foresee that the port of Shanghai would close … people in the industry thought that after the pandemic it would recover,” she said.

The opposition has accused the Legault government for several months of rushing headlong into the construction of seniors’ homes for electoral reasons, even if this project has become a “financial pit” and a “disaster announced” according to them.

Again on Tuesday, Prime Minister François Legault defended his government’s budget choice during question period in the National Assembly.

“We must not only act in care and home services, we must also act in CHSLDs. And that’s why we have a major project for seniors’ homes. I know that the opposition think that too much money is put into seniors’ homes, it’s too expensive for our seniors. I find that our seniors deserve these seniors’ homes, ”he argued, in reaction to the Parti Québécois, who deplored the insufficient development of home care.

“A model that is difficult to sustain”

Researchers from the Pôle santé of HEC Montréal expressed reservations about the model of seniors’ homes in a report submitted to the Commissioner of Health and Well-being, Joanne Castonguay, in October 2021.

According to them, “the specific constraints of seniors’ homes”, i.e. without taking into account overheating and inflation, “make their construction cost represent between 1.5 and 2 times the cost of construction of traditional CHSLDs”.

“The very high cost of seniors’ homes seems to make them a model that is difficult to sustain, considering the large number of places to be built in the coming years in order to cope with demographic change”, add professors Samuel Sponem, Caroline Lambert, Élodie Allain and Denis Chateauvert.

According to Statistics Canada, the number of Canadians over the age of 90 will triple in about 30 years. In its own forecast, the Ministry of Health and Social Services estimates that an additional 20,264 people aged 70 or over will need long-term accommodation in 2028, a 60% increase from to the current situation.

And that’s not counting that 3,800 people are on the waiting list to get a place in a CHSLD, a number that has increased under the CAQ leadership. The places provided for in seniors’ homes barely meet this urgent need.

In a report tabled on May 11 in the National Assembly, the Auditor General of Quebec, Guylaine Leclerc, is concerned about this growing demand and insufficient home care services. “If no changes are made, seniors with a great loss of autonomy will not all have access to public long-term care by 2028 nor to a sufficient intensity of services,” she concludes, lamenting that the government is navigating by sight and not doing proper planning.

Four years ago, during the election campaign, the CAQ promised to create 2,600 places in a new concept of accommodation, seniors’ homes, at a cost of $1 billion. The bill soared to 1.5 billion in 2020, to 2.36 billion last year, and now to 2.79 billion. We must add the total acquisition cost for the land, which amounts to 16 million. The overall project is to provide a total of 3,480 places for seniors and adults with severe disabilities in 46 homes – 33 of which, with 2,600 places, will be delivered next fall. The other houses must be delivered during the year 2023.