Pubdate: Fri, 06 Feb 2015 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc. Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.theprovince.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Sam Cooper Page: 6 BAD PRESS WON'T DRAG DOWN PHS, FORMER DIRECTOR CLAIMS Depending on your perspective, Mark Townsend might be the visionary that put Vancouver's harm reduction model on the map, or the profligate spender who nearly destroyed a massive non-profit by appearing to live comfortably on the backs of society's most vulnerable. Townsend himself says the story is much more complicated than that. Last year, after two decades of building the Portland Hotel Society from scratch into the dominant service provider in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Townsend was forced to step down as executive director amid a spending scandal. Audits uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on luxurious travel arrangements worldwide, spas, massages, gifts, limos, and self-assigned executive perks. Townsend's wife Liz Evans, and senior managers Dan Small and Kerstin Stuerzbecher, resigned as well. Townsend repeatedly explained global spending to auditors as PHS "social initiatives unrelated to B.C. Housing funding." One example, a $4,456 charge by Townsend in Paris in 2010, was invoiced from a firm called "YOURPARISEX." The auditor could not confirm what was purchased, but speculated the charge referred to "Your Paris Experience" - a tour operator which provides "bespoke experiences for the discerning traveller." The Province contacted Lisa Buros-Hutchins, founder of Your Paris Experience, and asked if she could describe her firm's services. "In the time frame mentioned, I believe my invoices were headed (YOURPARISEX)," she responded, without stating what services the firm provides. In several interviews with The Province, Townsend said expenditures like "YOURPARISEX" were meant to save money at international conferences with logistical support. "Did we make mistakes? Yes, I've made thousands, but we didn't have procurement offices," Townsend said. "The irony is, the people from B.C. Housing were at those same conferences, in the same hotels and on the same planes." Townsend spoke candidly about his complicated legacy at the PHS. He said all his actions were aimed at creating ways to save lives in the Downtown Eastside, where costly "bureaucratic silos" had failed. Townsend says since resigning last year he has quietly been working with PHS "to help ease the transition" as well as consulting for harm reduction providers around the world." "I don't want to overplay what we did, but it is seen as something to emulate from Brazil to China," he said. "People didn't want AIDS to be a death sentence, so we gave them needles. But it wasn't just harm reduction. We got a lot of detox and treatment beds. We pushed the envelope because we saw people suffering." Townsend defiantly insists the travel spending questioned by auditors did not come from taxpayers. Private funders like hedge-fund billionaire George Soros donated the money, Townsend claims. Furthermore, he says, travel to conferences was needed to defend PHS innovations like the supervised injection site. International contacts helped in the pressuring and shaming of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a government bent on shutting Insite and PHS down, Townsend claims. Although the federal government has yet to extend Insite's operating permit for 2015, Townsend believes a 2011 Supreme Court ruling guarantees its future. Townsend said bad press around PHS' management won't drag down the vast non-profit, which has grown from $2,400 in assets in 1996 to $70 million in 2014. "We are proud of the staff - they don't need us," he said. "The politics of this was to get rid of us, but the staff are still committed to the vision, solving problems and ignoring the bureaucracy. Actually, when the government parachuted in its people, I think they were shocked at how effective our machine is." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom