Winnipeg man alleges landlord who evicted tenants forced him out too

A Winnipeg man says the landlord of a College Avenue apartment block where dozens of tenants were evicted with little notice this month also forced him out of his longtime suite in 2021.

Christopher Reed alleged he was bullied and harassed so severely that he filed a complaint of discrimination against 211 Furby Ltd. with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, Reed said in an interview with CBC News.

Reed, whose traditional name is Black Bear Walking in the Daylight, is a member of Rolling River First Nation.

In his complaint, he alleged he experienced harassment based on his Indigenous ancestry, his disability living with post-traumatic stress disorder and his source of income being provincial Employment and Income Assistance.

Reed lived at 211 Furby St. from 2016 until December 2021. That's when he said a conflict with the building's management escalated, resulting in his door being removed and his utilities being shut off without notice over the Christmas holidays, the complaint said. 

Reed said he was given multiple eviction notices which were based on false claims, including that he had changed the lock and key to his apartment door without permission.

Reed said he believes the escalation in bullying and harassment happened at least in part to get him to move out immediately as renovations were taking place in the building, and also in retaliation toward his ongoing requests for repairs in the complex. His lawyer at the time, James Beddome, agrees.

"It was a clear pattern of bullying and harassment, intimidation in my opinion," Beddome, who was Reed's lawyer through Legal Aid Manitoba, said.

Kelly Vasas is the sole director of 211 Furby Ltd., which owns the building at 211 Furby St. It came under his management in 2020. Vasas is also the sole director of a numbered Manitoba company that owns 285 College Ave., where evictions took place earlier this month — ones the province described as "illegal." 

Reed said he's speaking out after hearing about Vasas's connection to the complex.

"What he did, how he displaced me is the same … The God-awful feeling I had when I saw those people sitting outside of that apartment block," Reed said.

CBC requested comment from Vasas through his lawyer, Garry Sinnock, last week.

Sinnock, a lawyer with the firm Chapman Goddard Kagan, has been instructed not to respond at this time, he told CBC in a message on Friday.

In early December 2021, Reed said he attended an online Residential Tenancies Branch hearing with Beddome and his then-landlord, Vasas, about repairs and services he had requested in the building.