Days after a forensic audit into BC Housing revealed mismanagement issues, the head of the Crown corporation’s largest housing provider has still not spoken to reporters.
Since the audit was tabled in the legislature on Monday, Janice Abbott, CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society, has not answered multiple interview requests from Global News. The audit uncovered a conflict of interest connected to her marriage to former BC Housing CEO Shane Ramsay, who held the top job at his organization while she held hers.
Neither benefitted materially from this conflict, the Ernst and Young report concluded, but one associate law professor said the findings are “very troubling” nevertheless.
“Atira has been under scrutiny for years regarding the conditions of the buildings that they run — reports of poor living conditions and safety concerns, yet nothing seemed to slow them down. The government money also just kept funneling in,” said Carol Liao, a distinguished scholar at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.
“If they do want to regain any public trust they may have had, they need to be transparent and accountable, and the positions they’ve taken thus far are somewhat concerning to me.”
To date, Atira’s board of directors has only provided a statement to address the audit, which in addition to conflict of interest, found that Atira took a number of actions contrary to its operation agreements.
Without BC Housing’s consent or knowledge, for example, Atira used $2 million in restricted, repayable funds to help fund a property purchase, and assigned an operating agreement for a women’s supportive housing program to a credit union as additional security for a mortgage.
It also bypassed BC Housing’s standard approval channels and approached senior members of the Crown corporation directly for funding and other requests multiple times. Under the limits of investigation, Ernst and Young did not uncover evidence suggesting Atira misused grants or other public finds — one of few aspects of the audit addressed by the board’s statement.
“We are unsurprised by the key finding of the review that there was no evidence of financial improprieties within Atira’s operations,” the board wrote late on Monday night.
“Atira’s Board of Directors remains confident that its CEO and senior management will guide the organization through these challenges and make required improvements to Atira’s operations and administration.”
The board has said it welcomes a financial audit of Atira and will take action to review and implement recommendations from the BC Housing audit.
The audit, ordered by the B.C. government last summer, noted that BC Housing is subject to greater scrutiny than Atira as a publicly-funded organization. Within the Crown corporation, it found “significant risks to public funds” as a result of questionable oversight and fund distribution practices.
While Ramsay was CEO, it found Atira was awarded contracts without a competitive process, received a substantial increase in funding, and received at least $3 million in COVID-19 funds without appropriate internal BC Housing approval.
It also found BC Housing kept records poorly, delayed financial reviews of Atira, and may have sent a message that Atira could breach its operating agreements “without fear or repercussions from BC Housing.”
Ramsay also modified meeting minutes to alter concerns raised about an Atira property purchase, and regularly deleted text messages despite habitually conducting BC Housing business through texts, Ernst and Young found.
A Monday statement from BC Housing’s board of directors said the board recognizes the “serious nature” of the issues identified in the report, and is already working on an action plan to address its recommendations. It accepted all 20 of them, and promised to implement them by next spring.
The recommendations included better oversight practices, the creation of an anonymous whistleblower hotline, strengthening codes of conduct and conflict of interest policies, changes to financial reviews of housing providers and more.
“Our board has complete confidence in BC Housing’s current executive committee to lead the organization through its evolution into the more complex organization we are becoming,” said chair of the board of commissioners Allan Seckel.
The B.C. government, meanwhile, has restricted new funding to Atira and suspended all its operating agreements until an audit is complete. All of Atira’s buildings will undergo physical inspection, it added, beginning this week.
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said Tuesday he was disappointed by Atira’s response to the audit to date.
“It shows a level of lack of concern for the information that’s been provided,” he said of Atira’s Monday night statement from the board. “My hope was that it wouldn’t be business as usual over at Atira, but that responsibility lies with the board to make those decisions.”
Atira operates 2,969 units of housing for women, children and gender diverse people in the Lower Mainland. Global News made multiple attempts to reach Atira and Abbott over several days, including phone calls, emails, and door-knocking.
Liao said the audit raises “glaring” concerns about Atira and BC Housing that paint a picture of overall “governance failure.”
“It was not just the bad behavior of a few, but actually the failure of oversight and the culture of secrecy and silence that enabled that,” she explained.
“The urgency and the breadth of the housing crisis in B.C. — to me, it can really open up opportunities for exploitation and corporate misconduct, and the importance of Atira’s mandate and the vulnerability of its demographic that it serves, to me adds a heightened responsibility for them to act ethically.”
Official Opposition BC United Leader Kevin Flacon, meanwhile, has slammed the New Democrat government for allowing mismanagement at BC Housing to thrive under its watch and accused the premier of not taking accountability for the lack of oversight both when he was housing minister, and as head of the current government.
Kahlon and the premier have defended the government’s actions, noting that the audit was published unredacted and that a review of BC Housing was also ordered in March of 2021.
Eby said Monday that while BC Housing has moved to address conflict concerns, Atira has not.
“We expect the rules to be followed. There must be strong safeguards in place to preserve the public’s trust,” he said.
— with files from Christa Dao
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