The Winter Olympics. It’s tough not to chuckle when you think about men’s figure skating and how everyone loves bobsledding. These things should come to mind when we think about the Olympics; it should be a time of global camaraderie and for most, it is. However, we need to examine the whole picture, including what the Olympics have become as well as the implications of bringing them to our city.

The games are undoubtedly leaving a legacy, but what kind of legacy is it? As some fellow students and I picked our way through the mud of a tent city in the downtown East Side, it was not what I had in mind when I think of a legacy. Not only have the Olympics become a powerful way for corporate sponsors to market and advertise, they have also become synonymous with economic growth and 15 minutes on the world stage. This leaves city councils with the task of “cleaning up,” often leading to targeting the issue of homelessness as a symptom instead of addressing how people end up on the street in the first place.
David Eby, a lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society who is advocating the rights of the Vancouver downtown east side residents, says, “The worst part is the broken promises in regards to low income housing…The legacy of affordable housing that has not happened, leaving [homeless groups] in tents.”

Since the awarding of the Olympics to Vancouver, real estate value in the downtown east side has significantly increased, leading to the eviction of residents from low income housing units that are to be renovated and rented out to an upscale market. In some cases, residents were only given 24 hours notice before their doors were boarded shut, violating bylaws and displacing them on the street. This is despite the stipulations in Vancouver’s Olympic bid, which directly state that no one will be rendered homeless because of the games, along with promises to leave a legacy of affordable housing. These initiatives are both being violated, and no one is being held accountable.

The tent city we visited was on city land where a groundbreaking ceremony was held five years ago, pledging to build low-income housing on the lot. Furthermore, athlete-housing facilities under construction that were initially to be offered as low income-housing units after the games were finished, are now slated for further upscale development. With the billions of surplus dollars our economy made this last year alone, it begs that we examine where we have set our priorities, since they are not on “the orphans and the widows.”

These people are not protesting the games themselves, but rather the effects of the broken promises, which were set in place to protect them.

To learn more, visit www.streamsofjustice.org, or come out to a meeting for the International Social Justice Club at 5:15 PM on Mondays in the TWUSA office.