Victims of last May’s flood and sewage back-up disaster will have to wait a little bit longer before flood-claim money is in their hands.
Thunder Bay and Area Disaster Relief Fund chairman Wayne Fletcher said the Toronto-based company charged with vetting applications is nearing the end of its task, but it will likely be a couple more weeks before its complete.
It will probably take a couple more weeks after that for the province to release payments to applicants approved through the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program.
“There’s a little over 20 left that Cunningham-Lindsay, which are the outside adjudicators we were allowed to use – because they are the more difficult cases. Once they’re done, we’re done, in the sense that we will (know) what we totally need to pay out,” Fletcher said on Thursday.
“Of course we already know what we’ve raised and then we can just do the math from there.”
While Fletcher still hopes to start making payments by the end of the month and acknowledged it’s been more than 10 months since the flood occurred, he reminded the public that when Peterborough accessed ODRAP following a 2004 flood, it took much longer.
The process is improving, he said.
“The committee has always wanted to get the money in people’s hands as fast as possible. Unfortunately with the program there are lots of things we have to check on and do. Believe it or not, Peterborough took 18 months to get (money) out,” Fletcher said.
“It’s not like it’s a fast process anyway. We just know people have been hurting for a period of time.”
Fletcher said he hopes the public understands the committee is doing its best to lessen the turnaround time, but government regulations can’t be circumvented.
“I understand people get upset and say, ‘I’m out of pocket for this length of time.’ But they just have to realize we’re dealing with governmental issues and sometimes it just takes a while to do that.”
The Disaster Relief Fund sits at about $1.5 million. The initial goal was $5 million. Fletcher said the committee plans to provide a progress update to council on April 15. An early deputation was postponed to allow more time for committee members to collect information.
