Are B.C. Housing's issues confined to Atira, or does the system need a rethink?
CBC
Fifty-five years ago, when the first iteration of B.C. Housing had existed for all of two days, a man's premonition appeared in the pages of The Province newspaper.
"Municipal Affairs Minister Campbell's new B.C. Housing Management Authority is like a shotgun — it can be a highly effective weapon, depending on what it's loaded with, what it's aimed at, and whether you pull the trigger," read a letter to the editor published on Dec. 13, 1967.
"So far there is no indication whether the provincial government even intends to take this new weapon off the wall. But if it does, it faces the problem involved in using any firearm — it can do a lot of harm if mishandled."
Instances of harmful mismanagement have come to pass at the agency more than once in the decades since, as the fledgling commission grew into a $2-billion Crown corporation responsible for social and supportive housing in the province.
One of the most corrosive examples came this week, when a damning B.C. Housing audit found mismanagement and conflict of interest violations at the organization's highest level. The report has sparked a conversation about whether the corporation's structure has become too splintered and too political to be effective.
Experts and stakeholders say the framework isn't fundamentally flawed, but proper oversight is critical if it's going be effective as non-profits continue to grow.
"On the whole, that system works very, very effectively — we've not had a lot of instances where things have gone off the rails and given what we're what we're delivering on and the significant new investments," said Jill Atkey, CEO of the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association.
"Overall, it's actually quite a strong success story despite the conversation this week."
B.C. Housing was first formed to solve what is still the province's perpetual problem: a desperate shortage of affordable housing.
The new agency was given power "to plan, acquire, build, operate or lease" public housing that would make the most of provincial and federal funding in concert with local governments, the latter of which were seen to be failing when left to get those projects off the ground themselves.
Back then, there was little talk around non-profits being involved.
Over time, the number of non-profits involved with supportive housing in B.C. has grown exponentially. So has the amount of funding they receive — and the complexity of where they get that money.
CBC News measured the financial statements of the five biggest organizations providing supportive housing in the province: Atira, RainCity Housing, PHS Community Services, Lookout Housing + Health Society, and Victoria Cool Aid.
Combined, those five groups operate more than 6,500 housing units across Vancouver Island and Southwest B.C. From 2017 to 2022, they received more than $942.4 million from various levels of government — or roughly 82.4 per cent of their funding.*