Man found living in underground cave in Edmonton’s River Valley: police

Police say they found a man living in an underground cave in Edmonton’s River Valley last month, days before it collapsed.

The Edmonton Police Service says officers were doing “resolutions” along the funicular when they came across a round piece of steel.

“They just happened to move it out of the way and discover a cave that had been dug in here, and found an occupant inside the cave,” Sgt. Serge Soucy with the high-risk encampment team said in an EPS video posted to X. “So he’d been living in here for a period of time.”

Police say the “vast” cave was five feet down and nearly 12 feet across.

“This is one of the most unique structures that we’ve encountered,” Soucy said. “Lots of work went into that.”

Edmonton police say after removing the occupant and sending him to the Government of Alberta’s “Navigation and Support,” officers returned to the cave days later to find “someone or something has caused it to cave in. Absolutely dangerous,” Soucy said.

EPS and EFRS crews were dispatched to make sure nobody was injured or buried after the collapse, police say. There were no injuries.

Now police are determining what to do next.

“That’s the concern is trying to clean this area out,” Soucy said. “How do you go in, how do you get stuff out of it, and the hazards you’re experiencing when you’re down in that hole.

“My recommendation would be to cave the whole thing in, so no one else makes an attempt to try to excavate it out further.”

Homeless advocate Jim Garnett says with the escalation of encampment teardowns, more camouflaged and harder-to-reach encampments are inevitable.

“The people who need a place to be are going to have to go further and further away, going to have to take more and more risks to be able to have that shelter,” said Garnett, the spokesperson for the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

Edmonton police say despite the concerning discovery, they have not seen an increase of encampments in the River Valley, suggesting the majority continue to be in the downtown core or in other green spaces across the city.

“This is one of the most unique structures we’ve encountered.”

Safety issues and structural concerns were top-of-mind when EPS was alerted of a cave in Edmonton’s River Valley being used for shelter.

“Recently our Sheriff partners found a hole which was covered up by a piece of… pic.twitter.com/wec6v6iNRx

— Edmonton Police (@edmontonpolice) March 12, 2024

–With files from Laura Krause, CityNews