The Obscenity of Vancouver's Olympic Games: Here
comes Frankenstein

-Am Johal

No, we can't blame it all on the Olympics. The
downtown peninsula was already about to be built up
and real estate economics were savouring the asset
value of neighbouring Downtown Eastside property.

Oh, but what to do with the poor people? Kick them
off welfare after two years, stop the construction of
social housing, put in the Safe Streets Act and bring
in Project Civil City? The surveillance cameras are
surely soon to follow?

City Councillor Kim Capri asks why people are no
longer displaying civil behaviour? Go figure.

Since the Olympics were awarded to Vancouver in 2003,
over 800 units of low-income housing have been lost
from the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood due to
conversions. More property speculation in the coming
years, weak intervention on the part of civic
government and inadequate funding for new social
housing in the province have essentially created a
whitewash around what was purported to be the most
well planned and sustainable Olympics ever. Another
800 units were also lost in the few years preceding
the bid being awarded as well.

Unfortunately, it's the same old story unfolding.

Global capital meets local greed. Real estate and
tourism interests trump the needs of the long term
low-income community which has called this
neighbourhood home for decades. Academics no longer
engaging in questions related to the public interest.
Non-profits worried about funding streams, unwilling
to be critical of governments.

The really sad thing about it is that people in
Vancouver don't really seem to care.

Even the Olympic village which was supposed to have
guaranteed social housing is now being taken away.
The 'sustainable' Southeast False Creek development
has also had its moderate income piece taken out.

All of the negative things associated with these
Olympics were to have been planned for. After all,
the research had been done on what happens in the lead
up to these events -- none of this should be coming as
a surprise. Unfortunately, the apparatus of power in
this city has set up the usual old boys way of doing
things and there isn't anything anyone can do about
it.

At a meeting in 2002, I remember asking for an SRO
bylaw to be put in to place at City Hall and described
the evictions which were happening in Salt Lake City.
The City Manager informed the councillors that she
wasn't aware of any evictions. Early on, it was clear
that the social agenda for the Olympics was not
adequately planned for.

Later on, as the Inner City Inclusivity Statement was
being formed, I asked if a specific number of housing
units could be included in the document so that we
would have a number we could hold them accountable for
in the future. We were told that they couldn't do
that. That was when I knew early on that any hope for
a sustainable Olympics or a different approach was
ostensibly dead -- this was going to be a public
relations document plain and simple.

Someone once told me that the great thing about seeing
time go by, is that you get to see how things turn
out.

The mass media in this city rarely write critical
stories of what is happening. As hundreds of millions
of dollars is spent on Olympic infrastructure,
homelessness continues to increase. Between 2002 and
2005, homelessness doubled in the Greater Vancouver
Regional District and will continue to increase
leading up to the Olympics unless major changes are
made.

The safe injection site for drug addicts is also
scheduled to come up for renewal again in December of
2007. If it is not renewed, more users will be
shooting up on the streets and will be vunerable to
infectious diseases and increased rates of overdose
deaths.

Raincity is about real estate and 99 cent pizza
depending on where you fall in the economic order of
things. The city should erect a bust of Karl Marx and
put it up in Oppenheimer Park -- it would serve as a
lasting reminder of how this neighbourhood is
afflicted by capital flows and disfigured public
policy based on the winners and losers of the economic
system.

The city placed a moratorium on commercial businesses
converting to condominiums in the Downtown business
district. The idea that SRO's are being permanently
lost at an astounding rate leading up to the Olympics
as a conscious part of public policy can only mean
that senior city bureaucrats and politicians are
working on a de facto policy of gentrification.

Look out for 2010 -- here comes Frankenstein.

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