Business leader appointed as interim CEO of housing provider Atira

Business leader appointed as interim CEO of embattled housing provider Atira

Catherine Roome (Technical Safety BC)

Catherine Roome has been named the interim CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society, following a conflict of interest and mismanagement scandal that has spiralled into a shakeup of both the non-profit housing society and provincial crown corporation BC Housing.

Roome has a wide range of experience in the private and public sector, including on boards — currently sitting on the boards of Prospera Credit Union, engineering firm McElhanney, BC Hydro wholly owned company Powerex, and BC Hydro’s Site C project oversight committee. She was also on the board of TransLink’s Metro Vancouver Transit Police force in 2015/2016.

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Up until 2022, after a decade in the role, she was the head of independent BC systems and equipment regulator Technical Safety BC. More recently, she co-founded Pulse Technologies.

“The Board is delighted that Ms. Roome has accepted the position of interim CEO with Atira,” said Elva Kim, board chair of Atira and the chief operating officer of Anthem Properties, in a statement.

“We believe she is the right person to lead the organization and bring it into a new phase of governance and operational best practices. She has deep private and public-sector experience at both executive and governance levels. She is a leader of complex, public-focused organizations that serve diverse communities, which will be an asset as we work to restore public confidence in our operations.”

Roome will begin her role with Aitra on July 1, 2023, and remain as the organization’s leader until a new permanent CEO is recruited.

“I am looking forward to working closely with Atira’s Board of Directors, staff, tenants, and community members as well as the Province and BC Housing,” said Roome. “I am eager to help Atira conduct the hard but necessary work to reset and renew while ensuring the organization’s important work — serving and protecting women, children, and gender-diverse people and providing much-needed housing — continues.”

This follows the resignation of Atira’s longtime CEO Janice Abbott two weeks ago, just days after Premier David Eby and BC Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon held a press conference revealing a troubling relationship between Atira and BC Housing. Atira’s board’s initial response backed Abbott, which was strongly criticized by Eby, who called for a change in leadership.

Atira is now in the midst of a new review by the provincial government, as part of a new phase of the investigation. The provincial government has, for the time being, suspended the awarding of new contracts and the renewal of existing contracts to Atira, which has grown into becoming BC Housing’s largest service provider by a wide margin in recent years.

Atira states the initial steps it has taken to date towards rebuilding public and government trust includes establishing a board task force to oversee the hiring of a third party to conduct a comprehensive and independent review of its policies and practices, meeting with BC Housing leadership, committing to being fully supportive of the upcoming financial and operating review led by provincial government consultant KPMG, agreeing to include a provincial government representative as an observer on its board, and returning $1.9 million in 2021/2022 surplus funds to BC Housing.

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