The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will hear a complaint that the City of Vancouver and Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association are discriminating against homeless and drug-addicted people through the Downtown Ambassadors Program.

In a 25-page decision dated July 3, tribunal member Tonie Beharrell threw out applications by the city and the DVBIA to dismiss the complaint filed on behalf of the homeless by Pivot Legal Society and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

The DVBIA operates the Downtown Ambassadors Program, which sees private security guards patrolling the streets, and has entered into a contract with the city to expand the coverage of the program.

The complaint alleges that the program’s private security guards are denying homeless people a service customarily available to the public, which is access to public space like sidewalks.

The ruling doesn’t indicate when the hearing for the complaint will take place.

The complainants have alleged that the policies of the city, through its Project Civil City, and the DVBIA are discriminatory against people with disabilities, including drug addiction, and that the program has disproportionately adverse effects on aboriginal and disabled persons in a 90-block area of downtown.

Among the “objectionable” practices cited in the complaint are the telling of people who are sitting down or lying down on sidewalks to move along, and the taking of photographs and notes of people on the street.

“The complainants argue that each of these tactics has the effect of humiliating and shaming homeless people who have equal legal access to public spaces, including sidewalks and back lanes,” Beharrell wrote in the decision.

Beharrell rejected arguments by the city and the DVBIA that Pivot and VANDU aren’t appropriate representatives of homeless people as a class, noting that both groups have a “significant interest in matters affecting the Class”.

“The two organizations are clearly dedicated to the interests of the homeless in Vancouver, including the members of the Class,” Beharrell wrote.