The City of Hamilton’s Auditor General, Charles Brown, released a scathing report in which he blasts city staff for their mismanagement of the Barton-Tiffany tiny shelter project.
The project has been marred by controversy, delays, and cost overruns.
A previous report from City of Hamilton staff revealed that capital costs for the project ballooned well past the $2.8 million budget estimate to $7.9 million – over $5 million more than expected.
The Auditor General’s 68-page report, which can be read here, finds issues with every single aspect of the tiny shelter project.
Auditor General Brown wrote, “There was insufficient research undertaken with respect to the Mayor’s Directive in that it was not adequate to deliver a range of feasible alternatives, including delivery options and associated costs.”
“Similarly, the research of potential vendors to supply/install the shelter units was not done in any organized way.”
Brown adds that there was also “inadequate project planning” and that staff underestimated the “complexity of a construction project involving a contaminated site.”
The Auditor General says that staff had a “lack of understanding of the risks associated with the project,” there was a “failure to communicate to Council the options available,” and a “failure to keep Council informed in a timely manner of known cost overruns.”
Additionally, he concludes that there was a lack of accountability, governance and control mechanisms in project execution, including ineffective, late, or inconsistent engagement of or by appropriate subject-matter expertise, non-optimal contract management mechanisms, and lack of oversight over project costs.”
“Overall, we found that the imperative of urgency overrode the importance of due diligence and good governance.”
The Auditor General also went into great detail regarding the procurement process for the shelters.
The Auditor General’s office reportedly “found no evidence of any organized search” for vendors.
“There was no advertising, and no formal call for expressions of interest.”
“The search of vendors was not conducted in any organized way and was, for all intents and purposes, a list of unsolicited and incomplete proposals,” the report continues.
MicroShelters Inc. was the company chosen by the city and is certified as an Indigenous business by the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business.
It was founded by Jeff Cooper, whose LinkedIn account identifies him as being from Ohsweken, Ontario, within the Six Nations of the Grand River, and Denis Fourcaudot from Burlington, Ontario.
The Auditor General says that the quotes that Microshelters Inc. provided to the city “were perfunctory, and lacked meaningful information with which to compare the specifications, other than size, that would be delivered.”
The Auditor General also determined that Microshelters Inc. “does not manufacture any product, nor do they have a sample of the merchandise they sell (shelter structures) on site for viewing or demonstration. They marketed their merchandise through a slide deck.”
The City of Hamilton is reportedly their sole customer, and the company is registered to a residential address in Brantford, Ontario.
Furthermore, in interviews with the Auditor General, the Microshelters Inc. directors claimed that “they did not know who the ultimate manufacturer of the shelter units was” since got them through an American-based company called Global Axxis, LLC, who in turn sourced them from China.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath issued a directive to city staff to create a tiny shelter community on Aug. 6, 2024.
MicroShelters Inc., the company that staff chose to procure the shelters, was incorporated only a few days later on Aug. 28, 2024.
The shelters were supposed to be up by Dec. 20, 2024, but the project was delayed until mid-January due to shipping issues.
The decision on the procurement of the shelters was made by the General Manager of the Healthy and Safe Communities Department, Grace Mater, after Council directed her to execute all agreements necessary for the project.
There were talks of tiny shelters throughout Winter 2023, so it remains unclear why Horwath waited until August 2024 to issue her directive to staff, since it meant that the tiny shelter plan was not approved by Council until September 2024, just three months before Winter 2024.
It was later revealed that the city was on the hook to pay taxes, shipping, and duties on the tiny shelters, further escalating costs.
When the shelters arrived, it was discovered that the electrical wiring and lighting components of the shelter units did not meet Canadian Standards Association requirements, and all units “required full rewiring before occupancy.”
It should be noted that not all City Councillors voted in support of the Barton-Tiffany project.
The project passed on a 12-4 vote in September 2024, with Matt Francis (Ward 5 – Hamilton East-Stoney Creek), Tom Jackson (Ward 6 – East Mountain), Esther Pauls (Ward 7 – Central Mountain) and Mike Spadafora (Ward 14 – West Mountain) voting against.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
