Bad press won’t drag down Portland Hotel Society, says embattled former director

published on February 5, 2015 by Sam Cooper, in The Province

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 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.”

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Bad press won’t drag down Portland Hotel Society, says embattled former director

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