Poverty groups take Vancouver security guards to B.C. Human Rights Tribunal

Mon May 31, 2010

Vancouver Province

VANCOUVER — The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will be asked Monday to decide whether a homeless person has a right to sit down on a sidewalk without being harassed by private security guards.

“Sidewalks are the issue,” said John Richardson, executive director of the Pivot Legal Society, on Sunday. “An important part of security guards’ job is removing the homeless from downtown. There have been hundreds of illegal removals.”

The two-year-old complaint was brought against the Vancouver Ambassadors, a privately funded security organization, whose mandate is to address “quality of life” issues such as panhandling, littering and illegal vending.

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