'Make it happen': 8 red flags identified in an external investigation of B.C. Housing

Rarely had a 50-page report from an accounting firm been subject to as much speculation in British Columbia.

But the investigation into B.C. Housing by Ernst and Young had been eagerly anticipated by a number of groups before it was released on Monday by Premier David Eby, who, as the then-housing minister, commissioned it. 

While the title said "Investigation of B.C. Housing," it more specifically looked at the relationship between B.C. Housing and a non-profit housing provider called Atira Women's Resource Society. 

Before this year, the two organizations had CEOs married to each other — Shayne Ramsay at B.C. Housing and Janice Abbott at Atira —and the report (which you can read here) highlighted several issues in how the organizations interacted.

Here are eight of them.

With a budget of $2 billion a year, B.C. Housing provides a number of different services across the province — but some of its job is simply giving money to other non-profit organizations that directly provide housing. 

Of those, the biggest is Atira: in recent years, the organization kept seeing its budget increase and received $74.1 million from B.C. Housing in 2022, a 335 per cent increase since 2016. 

Of the four housing organizations that received the most money from B.C. Housing, Atira had by far the highest percentage of units that required more than $3,500 a month to service and the highest percentage of its funding going to administrative charges.

Despite this, Atira ran into cash flow issues in 2022, following the purchase of an SRO at 303 Columbia for $16.9 million, in part by using $2 million in restricted funds from B.C. Housing it was unauthorized to use. 

Ernst and Young also found Atira frequently was behind in providing financial information to B.C. Housing and wrote, "Given the scale of funds provided to Atira, the lack of accurate monthly or quarterly financial analysis represents a significant gap in B.C. Housing's financial oversight."

Those concerns were heightened because of the relationship between Ramsay and Abbott. 

In 2010, Ramsay signed a declaration saying that "all dealings and decisions regarding Atira will be made without [his] reference or consultation." But the Ernst and Young report found at least 26 instances where Ramsay broke this rule, at times advocating for Atira to get additional funding or projects.

"Multiple individuals told [Ernst and Young] that Atira regularly bypassed the traditional communication channels by approaching more senior members of B.C. Housing directly for matters such as funding requests," the report stated. 

"In turn, the senior members of B.C. Housing told other B.C. Housing employees to 'make it happen.'"