The primary focus when building this website is to provide affordable options for the people of the Sault Ste. Marie (Algoma) and Sudbury-Manitoulin District areas.

 

Northeastern Ontario is an underserviced, large geographic area for which we have limited options. For the most part, we Northerners feel as if we are marginalized not just by the federal and provincial governments but even our municipal governing bodies.

 

The objective of this site (should it take off) is to provide and stimulate ideas, economic benefits, sounding boards, information, skills, opportunities and options.

 

The hope is, that we, as a collective being two distinct districts will be able to share sales, ideas on how to improve our lives and save money, recipes, advice, information about available services in the area, road conditions, weather and, but not limited to, economic development ideas to stimulate our local economies and retain (if not improve on) what few businesses and industries we currently have.

 

Found in the “Information” tab of this website, are programs, guides, applications and the likes.

 

The Affordable Housing Program alone will provide funding (if you qualify) for approximately up to $25,000.00 in home repairs, up to $50,000.00 for the down payments towards home ownership, rental subsidies, garden suites / “granny flats” and the likes to households with incomes of less than approximately $50,000.00 (could be income levels of $60,300.00 and or higher or lower) for which you are responsible for reading the information as these are forgivable grants and loans which means, if you follow the criteria, you might never have to pay a penny back. Furthermore, this program may even fund renovations and or new builds for apartments and projects which promote affordable living.

 

And as a group, if the administering bodies have not elected to provide the Affordable Housing program to its fullest of capabilities, people can go forth to their MPPs and request the budget of this already existing program (program ends in 2020) be increased and / or extended so that the people of our districts can have benefit.

 

Our health care resources are not just limited and spread far apart creating accessibility issues, but the resources available to our districts are diminished. Further information on the site is the Direct Funding Self-Managed Attendant Program which funds up to 212 hours per month (approximately 7 hours per day) of home support services in which the patient directs the services provided, hires their employee, and the government (if you qualify and fill out the forms) provides you the money to hire an employee at up to $17.00-$19.00 per hour so that you can stay in the community. It will not cost you a dime except for your time.

 

There is information with respect to the Community Care Access Centres which, buried in the paperwork available on this site, indicates how many hours of community care people should have been eligible for and that if nursing was assigned for an hour, that the employee was obligated to stay for an hour and not be paid what the Auditor General of Ontario stated wages to be $25 to $34 an hour when the health care provider was only staying for 5 to 15 minutes.

 

As members of the community including, and in between Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Manitoulin Island, we are responsible to ensure that the tax dollars earmarked to provide us benefits are being appropriately spent and not misused.

 

There is a chat room…a place where we can meet, greet, speak and hopefully never be alone.

 

Forums will be up and coming.

 

My personal favourite, we have a place for you to shop which is unlike the current Facebook “Buy and Sell” groups which I respect and admire but I personally have an issue with people posting to twenty (20) or so groups, bumping, saturating and clogging up my Facebook feed because I am being bombarded with items that everyone wants to sell and as a result, I am missing out on the few posts that my few friends post because everything gets buried.

 

We’ve included the weather, selling a few items and basically, if you look around, you might see a lot more.

 

Make note that we have included our pick being a Mini Personal Computer that we are recommending people buy. Literally, it hooks up to your television, it can be used as a game system, hook up a “All-In-One Fax/Copy/Scan” Printer, some Netflix, Amazon or CraveTV, it can be used as an e-Reader, Windows 10 preinstalled for word processing / typewriting…storage for home videos and photos, chat using Skype, send mail / e-mail, web surfing, listen to music, watch movies…Basically, an item that can save the average person more than $1,200 per year (depending on the person).