Auditor general finds gaps in B.C. Housing's pandemic program for families fleeing violence

B.C.'s auditor general says the provincial housing agency should ensure rooms it finds for women and children fleeing violence are held exclusively for their use.

In an audit of B.C. Housing's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, auditor general Michael Pickup says the Crown corporation did not have a process to ensure hotel and motel operators fulfilled their agreements for the space.

As a result, the audit found rooms leased by B.C. Housing at three hotels were rented out to others during the period that was assessed between April 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021. In all of those cases, the hotels were under lease agreements that required those rooms to be set aside.

The recommendation is one of four made by Pickup, whose audit found that B.C. Housing "effectively managed" its program to provide additional safe spaces for women and children, but with "some exceptions."

"In some cases, there was a risk women couldn't get a safe space when they needed it," Pickup said in a written statement.

B.C. Housing accepted all four recommendations.

Pickup also says there are gaps in the agency's response to situations where women were turned away because of a lack of space and suggests better data collection to determine why this happens.

The auditor general also suggests B.C. Housing collect more information on disabilities, mental wellness, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and gender identity of its clients to monitor whether the spaces are accessible to all women.

That data was not collected during the audit period, which means the housing provider may not have been aware of cases where women were turned away for those reasons. In at least one case, according to the report, rooms weren't accessible to women with physical disabilities.

As well, it recommended that B.C. Housing work to better understand and address the staffing needs of housing providers after it found three of the 12 organizations it interviewed had staffing shortages during the pandemic.