Vancouver city council approves nearly $800K in grants to embattled Atira Women's Resource Society

Vancouver council has unanimously approved four grants totalling nearly $800,000 to Atira Women's Resource Society, as the embattled housing operator says it's continuing to "renew public trust" following a conflict-of-interest scandal in the spring.

The grants include $700,000 to support the creation of an Indigenous healing and wellness centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

"I was nervous, quite frankly, when I saw the name of Atira appear," said Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung during the council discussion. 

However, Kirby-Yung and other councillors emphasized the money was going to non-housing programs operated by Atira that they considered worthy initiatives.

"I think everyone knows the spotlight is on them, and it's not an easy place to be, but we do need to ensure we're doing our due diligence, and I feel like that's been done," she said.  

Provincial investigation

Atira operates about 3,000 units of housing for women, children and gender-diverse people in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.

The city paused funding to Atira after an audit in May found conflict-of-interest violations involving former Atira CEO Janice Abbott and her husband, the former head of B.C. Housing.

The report said former B.C. Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay directed funds to Atira and repeatedly influenced decisions that benefited the society.

The probe found Atira bypassed traditional communication channels and went straight to senior members of the Crown corporation for funding requests.

Atira was also awarded contracts directly, "without transparent, competitive processes designed to ensure the proper use of public funds,'' the report said.

Abbott resigned in May and was replaced by interim CEO Catherine Roome, who will stay on until Atira picks a permanent leader.

"When the board asked me to take the role on, we determined that we actually had to show up differently as an organization and the two values that we really had to pull on were transparency and partnership," Roome told CBC News Tuesday.

Atira, the largest housing operator in B.C., returned nearly $2 million in surplus funds to the province and announced a third-party review of its policies and practices after the audit. 

City holds funding ... until now

After the audit, the City of Vancouver decided to hold in abeyance all applications by Atira for grants, and to review grants to Atira that have not yet been disbursed. 

In their report to council, city staff said the recommended grants were deemed "sensitive and of strategic importance and each of them require timely decisions." 

Staff say given Roome's appointment as interim CEO, they are "confident that the Atira Board is taking appropriate internal steps to address any governance or other operational concerns."

Coun. Lisa Dominato said she was satisfied with the staff review.

"Some of the programming offered by Atira ... they serve a very vulnerable population, often communities that other communities don't want to undertake and support," she said. 

"On balance, we should support these grants today."

'I believe we have regained that trust': Atira

Roome says it's understandable that the city paused funding.

"City council has huge responsibilities to the taxpayers around where they spend their money," she said. "I think we've really showed in the last almost five months that we took all of those reviews extremely seriously ... I believe we have regained that trust."

Roome said Atira has introduced a code of conduct into Atira's existing daily practice policies and procedures, emphasizing that conflicts of interest would not be tolerated, and reviewed all existing operating contracts with B.C. Housing, among other things to rebuild public trust.

B.C. Housing has retained accounting firm KPMG to conduct an operational review, which is expected to take months. It restricted any new funding for Atira in May and said that will continue until the review is complete. 

"B.C. Housing has taken significant steps to address organizational structure and capacity, financial systems, governance practices, and policies related to oversight, transparency and conflict of interest," the agency said in a statement Tuesday evening.

"We recognize that as B.C. Housing continues to expand, we must also modernize and adapt to create more efficiencies in how we operate. This planning is underway and is supported by government."