Squatters refuse to leave apartment tower grounds
English Bay building resident says he’s been threatened by man and repeated calls to police, city have not yielded results
A Vancouverite who said he’s been threatened by a man visiting a tent behind his English Bay apartment tower says he’s been given the runaround by the city and Vancouver police in trying to have the encampment removed.
Max Pederson has been trying for months to get his complaints about a semi-permanent tent that’s tucked in a corner behind his building on Bidwell and Burnaby streets in Vancouver’s West End taken seriously.
He said the tent and its occupants of at least one man and a woman, which he can see from his balcony overlooking English Bay, have been there since the beginning of the summer.
He said he believes the tent is on the private property of his apartment building, Imperial Tower.
Pederson has made repeated calls to police and to city officials because he said he’s been threatened — once by a man with a knife who was visiting the tent — and he feels unsafe walking by on the way to the bus stop every morning.
Pederson wants the police to charge the occupants with loitering, uttering threats or mischief and remove the tent.
He said the police suggested he avoid any contact with the occupants and to call in any time his personal safety is threatened. “I have been doing that and nothing happens,” he said.
VPD Const. Jason Doucette said police are forbidden from touching an individual’s personal property, but officers were willing to work with city officials.
But Pederson said he has hit a wall with city hall.
He sent a letter before Christmas that said, in part, “It is odd that the city is eager to ticket and tow vehicles parked on this street but allows living on private property to be free.”
A response to that letter Pederson received on Friday said Vancouver police and the city’s homeless outreach team contacted the tent-dwellers, “but they have not been co-operative with us.”
“We are currently working to resolve this issue and the next step we are taking is to send the owner of the property an order to have the camp removed,” said the letter.
Steve Creighton, the off-site property manager for Imperial Tower, said he has made several complaints to police because of his residents’ concerns about the tenters acting aggressively.
He laughed when he learned the city was going to order the owner to remove it. “We’re going to go there and