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Province takes control of the Downtown Eastside’s PHS, housing, injection site as founders agree to step aside

March 19th, 2014 · 31 Comments

Mark Townsend and Liz Evans of PHS Community Services tried one last time to make the case to the provincial government that there were no problems at their organization that couldn’t be fixed with some good will. But they acknowledged, in the end, that the province had simply lost faith in them.

Last Thursday, they agreed to step aside. They told all their staff Saturday what was happening. And the province is on the verge of installing a new board for the non-profit, one that includes former Vancouver Coastal Health leader Ida Goodreau and former PHS board member Jim O’Dea.

It’s been a long, incredible journey for this group. My story here has many more details.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • What is the stance of the City of Vancouver on this? I didn’t notice them jumping to ardent defense of the PHS.

    Perhaps with the new vision for the DTES, the coV thought too that it was time for a change and some fresh management.

  • tf

    I wish the province would clean it’s own house before targeting those people who have worked their entire lives to make something happen for the people who live in the Downtown Eastside.
    Audit the BC Liberals please and let’s see who needs to resign!

  • Dan Cooper

    Amen, tf, amen.

  • teririch

    @[email protected]

    You ‘ve hit the nail on the head.

    The CoV DTES plan will eventually see all social housing in the area wiped out.

    The grand plan.

  • F.H.Leghorn

    @tf#2:”people who have worked their entire lives to make something happen”. Unfortunately, the only thing that has happened is that Mark and Liz have been paying themselves $160K/yr and renting their basement to the society. Meanwhile the DTES has sunk to record levels of poverty, ignorance, addiction and mental illness.
    A good case can be made that the “clients” of PHS would have been better off if the hefty salaries of the poverty pimps had been given to them.
    Speaking of ignorance, the provincial government is audited on a regular basis. Check out https://www.bcauditor.com/

  • gman

    “The group has routinely attracted international attention. British comedian Russell Brand visited PHS operations recently and tweeted enthusiastically about them.”
    Well enough said then,a British comedian is on board so they must be doing a helluva job then…are you kidding?
    These are millions and millions of dollars paid by taxpayers for the poorest of the poor and as soon as they are put under the microscope of accountability they fold and head for the hills.
    These so called altruistic people paid themselves $320,000 a year plus collected rent on their basement.And how much did the rest of this top heavy operation pay themselves including exotic holidays.And what about the maintenance contracts paid out and how did they come about.If these things are true then people should be pissed,especially the poor elderly who are forced to live in these mismanaged hell holes.

  • gman

    And here is the evil NP piece from a few days ago with a few more numbers.It would seem to me that people who would take this kind of challenge on would work for free or at least a more modest wage.

    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/14/brian-hutchinson-vancouver-downtown-eastside-social-service-provider-phs-is-neither-too-big-or-too-cheap-to-fail/

  • Kenji

    I hope to get into this sort of work someday; the investigation and resolution of this scandal, if that’s the right word, is in some ways heartening. I would not want to work in an industry that is synonymous with corruption.

  • Bill Lee

    The audit by BC Housing (one from the Health authorities to come)

    Report to BC Housing /
    PHS Community Services Society “PHS” /
    July 18, 2013

    http://www.bchousing.org/resources/Media_Centre/PHS/PHS_Financial_Review.pdf
    [ 126 pages PDF file ]

  • brilliant

    What, no “progressives” leaping to their defence? Maybe tbey’re all to busy at the TED navelgazing bun toss.

  • rf

    I’ve read it through. It’s pretty stunning. The holiday pay stuff!!
    And Townsend and Evans. It’s like they are jetsetting around the world in the name of homelessness at $2,000/day…

    Ironic and sad is all I can say.

    And if it’s happening at PHS, I can only imagine what BC Housing is doing with their massive budget.

    I think Shane Ramsay’s head should roll. How can this be happening without him being aware or on top of it.

  • tf

    I do leap to their defense.
    I found the executive at PHS to be no more corrupt than any other corporate body.
    I think the witch hunt is a political one, cloaked under scandalous headlines.
    “Oh, shocker – a limo!”
    For 11 employees; anyone travelling from the airport knows that one limo is more cost effective than 3 taxis.
    Why don’t provincial legislators take the ferry instead of flying direct? It’s about time vs. money.
    To force the PHS executive and board to resign is ludicrous and politically motivated. I don’t justify some of their spending habits but why doesn’t the province just work with them to make changes?
    What do we think will happen to the PHS social enterprises, drug support programs and housing with the province in charge?
    Do we think a province-appointed board will fight as passionately for the down-trodden as Mark or Liz have done for 20 years? I don’t think so.
    The headlines and targeting of PHS curiously follow the approval of the Local Area Plan for the DTES; I wonder how much Bob Rennie receives per meeting to sit on the board of BC Housing?
    The province didn’t like the advocacy work that PHS did for their programs and now the PHS is being punished for providing support that no one else would.
    The auditing of PHS is about political ideology and not about “shocking” expenditures.

  • rf

    A corporate body does not answer to taxpayers. They answer to shareholders.

    If a corporate body is corrupt it’s up to the shareholders to decide if they are ok with that.

    A public body answers to all of us. When I think about public funding for the homeless, I don’t picture 30 spa treatments and nights at the plaza in NYC.

    If you are honestly reading that report and thinking, “if they worked for a corporation, this would all be just fine!” I think that you are missing the point.

    The point, by the way, is that they don’t work for a corporation.

    And that makes your comparison pointless.

    The comparison would be that if a politician spent public funds like these 2 did, they would be dusted from cabinet and from office by the electorate. Look what they did to Bev Oda over a $16 glass of orange juice.

    Would anyone out there honestly want to donate a dollar to the PHS knowing now how they spend some of these funds?

  • bablu1

    Well said,tf. Terrible optics, though.

  • teririch

    I work for a ‘corporation’ and travel a lot with my job. There is no way I would dare to even consider spending $549/night on a hotel and or charging spa treatments back to my employer.

    During a recent trip to Toronto I called home three times from my room land line.

    I was shocked when I checked out and and found out those three calls came in at roughly $126.00. (The one call – not even 1 min was $10.60 alone – thanks to that hotel chain using AT&T as a service provider….in Canada)

    When I submitted my expenses, I removed all of those charges as they were ‘personal’ and not related to my job.

    When I travel for work, I treat the companies money no differently than I would my own. I don’t add on ‘extras’ or ‘extravagants’ because it is not my money

  • Silly Season

    @bablu1 #13

    This kind of relativism drives me crazy. They. Were. Wrong. To. Do. This. WAY beyond ‘terrible optics’. Au revoir—don’t let the door hit you on your expense report luvvin’ bums. Mr. T. has used used his own bully pulpit over the years in order to avoid this day—and have his way on how he manages various projects—for quite awhile. But now, chickens—meet roost.

    The times they are a changin’…on the DTES.

    Which brings me to my conspiracy du jour!

    Now. Far be it from me to speculate 🙂 but (and I’m trying to figure out why no one else has made THIS connection yet) …

    One wonders whether the CoV has given tacit —or more—support to Minister Coleman and BC Housing in this matter.

    Why? Well, Mr. Townsend was not universally loved, outside or inside government, at all levels. That the level of animus comes out now in one fell communications swoosh—interesting. Yes, I know it was well known on the DTES but why did it take so long to out him? Especially with the one or two reports that made the media on ‘bad behaviour?’

    Does it not make some sense that beyond the obviously nutso expenses, that he would be viewed by all parties at as a potentially serious impediment to the development and execution of the DTES LAPP plan?

    We’ve already seen Townsend ‘bite the hand’ in many ways—whether trying to advocate for his managed properties (including ‘Insite) or trying to run the province off on his expenses (the report is full of denials, refusals, etc. Yes, I know that one would not want to incriminate oneself, but sheesh). Would there not have been a huge opportunity for him, both from the political and empire keeping/building points of view to resisit, and ‘deal’ with BOTH the province and the City over the new development?

    And of course, there has been a long association betweeen the Housing Minister and the City in terms of coming up with the scratch for SRO’s. Of course the province owns significant buildings and parcels. The City wants access, wants to encourage and give enough surety to developers, and while it looks for more funding for the project from senior levels of governeemnt, know it’s a good idea for all to play nice? The sound of those crickets from the Third Floor at City Hall as the province and BC Housing have swooped in on Townsend: deafening.

    And speaking about crickets, perhaps Mr. Townsend was the fly in all this ointment, the one that could have organized a whole lot of opposition to the LAPP Plan.

    Timing is everything….

  • tf

    Hi rf – you and I disagree.
    Check the definition of corporation – I think your definition is too limiting. I put to you that the PHS is a corporation, maybe not in the general understanding of the term but in actuality.
    You missed my point that I do question some of their expenses but not to the end of them being forced out of leadership. Bev Oda still sits behind Stephen Harper, doesn’t she?
    The point is – I’m not excusing spa visits or expensive hotels, but I am cognizant that it’s an incredibly demanding job to provide housing for 1000 of Vancouver’s most marginalized people and PHS has done so. I think it would be better to work with them to figure out the problems and not against them.
    Their replacements will face the same difficulties and I challenge them to do a better job.

  • blp

    If we’re looking for comparisons, I think a reminder on what the Liberals and their pals on the BC Rail board did with public money is warranted here:
    http://willcocks.blogspot.ca/2010/09/those-bc-rail-canucks-tickets.html

  • F.H.Leghorn

    TED has been described (pretty accurately in my view) as “middlebrow megachurch infotainment”.
    I love the way the story is being spun: “There’s nothing wrong with their financials but they’re all resigning for some unspecified reason”. Or better still the apologist’s assertion: “It’s political”.
    First it was DERA. That was unfortunate. Now PHS. A pattern is emerging. Atira is probably next on the audit list, though it may take a bit longer since Janice Abbott is married to Shane Ramsay. Of course there’s no suggestion of a conflict of interest there.

  • Rf

    Tf, I really see your view as classic ‘some animals are more equal than others’ thinking. Imagine if the VPD spent money like this. Or what if doctors and nurses all decide to treat themselves to dinner at Hawkesworth every time they faced a ‘difficult loss’ or saved a life, covered with public funds?

    It would be financial bedlam.

    PHS provides a service and the compensation is in the form of salaries and wages.

    The discretionary spending in the name of reward is the ugliest form of entitlement….and perhaps crosses the line into outright theft.

    You may appreciate the work and good things they did, but that doesn’t come close, IMO, to justification for what they appear to have been doing with dollars targeted at the most desperate people in the province.

  • dw

    I’ve worked in the DTES for years, on the street level and the decision-making level. I’ve both volunteered on the DTES and worked for salary there.

    On one hand, it is clear that PHS execs were irresponsible in the record keeping around their spending, and it is my opinion, based on the report, that they expensed far more than I would be comfortable expensing. I’ve traveled on the dime of DTES orgs for conferences, and I like to think that what I learned made a significant difference for the impoverished people I worked for; that the learning and pro-d had a good ROI. I had the option on these trips of being extravagant in some spending, but decided not to because it didn’t have a good ROI in terms of results for the clients.

    On the other hand, getting in a tizzy about compensation distracts us from the real problem, which is whether an executive is geting results. How DTES executives are compensated is none of my business if they are getting dollar-for-dollar results. I won’t judge Townsend for his expense account, but I WILL judge him for whether PHS has been effective with the contracts they got from the gov’t. My thoughts on PHS merits and flaws would open another can of worms, so I’ll address them some other time. 🙂

    When it comes to executive compensation, would the public rather have righteous anger or results? If there was someone who could show significant success ending DTES problems, would it matter if he/she was making $170k+ per year and traveled the world over to see what other cities are doing to end poverty?

    THE REAL SCANDAL is that we don’t have a better system in place to evaluate whether PHS – or other organizations – are successful with the money they get. Vancouver’s street homeless count (done every year just before the HEAT shelters close down) is better than nothing…but why isn’t there a thorough report that shows where poverty/homelessness/mental health/addiction is at in Vancouver/DTES year over year, and why aren’t we holding organizations like PHS to account for actual results? If we had decent data, we could make judgments, fire who we need to fire, give bonuses to those who were hitting it out of the park, etc.

    It is so simple in any other sector, but if you start to talk poverty charities suddenly everyone gets weird and uses completely different standards. In any other business or social venture, it would start with a goal, then defined and shared measurements, then goal-related activity, then evaluation based on measurements, then correction based on evaluation. But in the DTES, it seems, all we do is the activity. The other parts are absent, based on non-goal criteria, or spread across so many different funders and agencies that they are not addressing the entire neighbourhood.

    I admit that it is more complicated to evaluate the incremental end of DTES problems than it is to evaluate, say, whether to fire a hockey coach when he’s losing or fire the Blackberry CEO when sales are down. But it is our challenge. The PHS leadership team did a poor job handling their finances, and have stepped down…let’s move on and start focusing on setting goals and measuring results.

  • Silly Season

    @Foghorn Leghorn,

    I don’t disagree that Townsend and wife and friends should have been thrown out. Enough problems to choke a horse. However, I also think the DTES Was such a hot potato that it took a confluence of events–including development—to push it all out.

    And @tf: those limo rides; $8700. That’s some taxi ride!

  • Silly Season

    I see that NDP MLA Jenny Kwan and her family also experienced PHS largesse in the form of a trip to Disneyland.

    She’ll pay it back, of course yada, yada, yada. Very glad to see that the concept of dining at the pork barrel and sense of entitlement is alive and well on the social justice side of the ledger. Now THAT’S income equality!

    Honestly, this stuff writes itself…

  • teririch

    DERA and PHS have a common thread – Jim Green.

    Can’t help ponder on how much traveling Vision PB Comish and PHS board member S. Blythe has done.

  • Silly Season

    Pete McMartin has just posted this very good overview of the most egregious stuff:

    The Portland Hotel Society — Oh. My. God.

    http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Pete+McMartin+Portland+Hotel+Society/9643285/story.html

    …and asks the same question I do: why is this happening now?

    The DTES is going to change—hopefully, for the better. Now, if they can figure out how to fully account for and rope that social service money together, and provide continuous treatment for the mentally ill/addicted—the province and the City will both deserve a gold star.

    Great Twitter convo on right now between @michaelgeller and former Globe-ian @rodmickleburgh btw on several aspects of this story.

  • Frances Bula

    It’s fair to raise legitimate questions but you should get some facts straight. Sarah Blyth (note spelling) is not a board member. She works as a manager at one of the PHS housing sites.

  • Everyman

    @tf 16
    Bev Oda doesn’t sit behind anyone in the House of Commons, she resigned her seat in 2012.

    It is inappropriate to expense spa treatments, and I find it hard to believe $549 a night was the cheapest hotel that could be found.

  • Bill Lee

    Re: teririch // Mar 20, 2014 at 6:39 pm #21
    and Madame Bula Mar 20, 2014 at 10:12 pm at #23

    From the Go-to-Hell Party archives
    “She works at the New Fountain Homeless Shelter in the DTES and is a founding member of Portland FC, a soccer team that started out from the New Fountain Homeless Shelter…”

  • Dan Cooper

    Corporations should only be responsible to their shareholders or owners? Not even if all or most of their work is under government contracts? That is certainly what my uncle who worked for the private contractors who operated Hanford Nuclear (100% funded by the US Government) thought. Myself, I disagree. How is a private non-profit providing services to the poor (or its employees) different than one building ships, or operating the Canada Line, or the like? The only explanation I hear is that people who work with the poor – or for the government directly, especially though not only in jobs such as teaching – are supposed to be saints and martyrs. Well, if you want me with my multiple degrees, years of education, decades of experience, ability to earn a lot of money anywhere in the world and in a variety of industries, and need to feed, clothe and educate my child to live in poverty in order to do good works, especially while others getting government contracts live high on the hog because they are with “corporations”….well, as someone wrote above don’t let the door hit you on the bum on the way out! How many nuns you gonna find these days to work for you for free? (Come to think of it, many of the Aboriginal people I work with literally shudder at the sight of nuns. Bad, bad history.)

  • Dan Cooper

    And yes, I do know people inside several corporations – privately held or stock, including those that live and die by government contracts – where these kind of employee benefits are completely typical. Likewise other non-profits, again both on government contracts and not.

    This all reminds me of the Khodorkovsky situation in Russia. He was putatively jailed for corruption, and doubtless he was indeed corrupt. How else do you go from owning nothing, same as everyone, to being a billionaire through formerly government owned properties, and in less than a decade? BUT of course all the other billionaires in Russia are equally corrupt but were not charged or jailed. Why? Because they did not challenge the political powers.

    In this case, I do not see that PHS did anything particularly wrong. What I do know is that what they were doing is very typical – and it seems obvious to me that the hammer came down on them not for what they were doing but because they were a thorn in the side of those who do not like to be questioned.

  • DeConstant

    @Dan Cooper

    “In this case, I do not see that PHS did anything particularly wrong. What I do know is that what they were doing is very typical – and it seems obvious to me that the hammer came down on them not for what they were doing but because they were a thorn in the side of those who do not like to be questioned.”

    You say that they didn’t do “anything particularly wrong” and that their actions were “very typical”; fine, it seems many people think that.

    But as it is, the PHS executives made their own bed and now they shall lie in it; their severance packages tucked under the mattress.

    Whatever the mechanics behind the scenes with the province doesn’t really matter. If there are hidden machinations of a provincial power move, well, the fact of the matter is the PHS made such a move possible. That’s the risk they took. I’m honestly having a tough time wrapping my head around them; did they really think this wasn’t going to come back to bite them? Really?

    I mean, while they were swiping all that plastic, they were also staging protests and pissing off their funding sources; the CEO of VCH refused contact with them. Did they really think it was wise to continue their spree? If they actually thought they were safe from recrimination then they’re criminally stupid and shouldn’t be heading up an organization anyway.