"Poverty Olympics" Spotlight Cost of Vancouver Games

by Josie Raymond · 2010-02-08 17:44:00 UTC
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Yesterday athletes took to the picturesque surroundings of Vancouver. But wait, the Olympics start next weekend. It was the "Poverty Olympics," a protest led by people who feel that the city's leaders haven't delivered on promises that hosting the Games would benefit all residents, even the homeless.

Hundreds of activists watched as the "Olympians" competed in three events in the downtrodden neighborhood called Downtown Eastside: the housing hurdles, the broken promise slalom and a wrestling match that pitted locals against an "evil developer." The event even had mascots: Itchy the bedbug and Chewy the rat. "If the money that was spent on the Olympics had been spent to end poverty and homelessness it could have been done by now," organizer Jean Swanson told the Vancouver Sun. Numbers are not public, but the Olympic pricetag for taxpayers is expected to be in the billions.

According to an article last week in the New York Times, Downtown Eastside is the poorest postal code in Canada -- and just five blocks from Friday's opening ceremony location. While beautiful venues have been built all around it over the last several years, the notorious neighborhood, which houses the first supervised heroin injection site in North America, is as dilapidated as ever. But hey, at least it wasn't bulldozed like Beijing's slums in advance of the 2008 Olympics, right? "We've been there and tried to help in every way we can," Vancouver Organizing Committee chairman Rusty Goepel told Reuters this week. "The Olympics are not designed to solve all of the problems of the world."

When Vancouver was facing off with other cities in an effort to become the host city, it drew up a plan for the construction of affordable housing and pledged not to displace the homeless. Based on stories we've reported on, those promises have not been kept. There have been reports of busing homeless people out of town as well as a new regulation that allows police to haul in people found sleeping outdoors. In addition to the groups behind the Poverty Olympics, others are trying to raise awareness of Vancouver's homeless population. One organization hopes to draw attention to Vancouver's homeless by distributing red pop-up tents during the Games. Another is facilitating home rentals for tourists while raising money for the city's needy. Keep them in mind during Friday's amazing, opulent opening ceremonies.

Photo credit: nofutureface.blogspot.com

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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