A panhandlers' rights group in Ottawa is preparing a human rights complaint against the City of Ottawa after it put up a fence to stop them from sleeping in a downtown pedestrian underpass.

The city's transportation committee had recommended the installation of the fence and increased lighting to improve safety in the underpass.
(CBC)

The Ottawa panhandlers union has also hired Ottawa lawyer Yavar Hameed to apply for a court injunction to remove the fence, said Andrew Nellis, an organizer for the group.

"We're going to do everything legally possible to bring that fence down," Nellis told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning Thursday. "But if it fails, we're going to use other methods."

The wrought iron fence was erected in the Rideau Street-Colonel By Drive underpass near the Rideau Centre as part of a $25,000 project that city council approved in November.

The city's transportation committee had recommended the installation of the fence and increased lighting to improve safety in the underpass.

But Nellis argued the fence threatens the safety and security of many homeless who rely on the underpass for shelter from winter weather.

"It's a place out of the elements, reasonably safe, a place where people can gather together and enjoy each other's company that doesn't cost any money," Nellis said. "And, of course in weather like this, it's important that there be places where people can sleep."

He added that he doesn't believe removing the fence would threaten the safety of pedestrians who use the underpass.

"People are not in any danger down there," he said. "The only thing that worries them is the fact that these people look poor. They wear ragged clothing, they might have tattoos, they don't look like civil servants, and people are worried about that."

Nellis argued that the poor are citizens too, and are guaranteed the right to safety and security of the person under the constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That is the argument he plans to make in his complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Since the fence was erected, it has been partially dismantled. Nellis suggested a political motive was behind that.