Vancouver's 'Poverty Olympics' Protest Millions Spent On Winter Games

A crowd on Sunday in Vancouver protested the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on the Olympic Winter Games while still being home to one of the most impoverished communities in Canada. Dubbed the "Poverty Olympics," the crowd marched with signs like "Homes Not Games" to raise the public consciousness of the city's Downtown Eastside.

From Reuters:

More than 200 attended the protest.

"Canada is a rich nation ... but you wouldn't know it in the Downtown Eastside," said [Robert] Bonner, a well known activist in the community.

The Games (February 12-28) have a mostly privately funded budget of C$1.7 billion but the government has spent C$580 million on venue construction costs and budgeted C$900 million for security.

A provincial auditor's report in 2006 put the real cost to tax payers at C$2.5 billion but Olympic critics claim it is actually closer to C$6 billion -- figures that Games organizers and government officials dismiss as too high.

Canada's New Democratic party estimates that 15,000 British Columbia residents are homeless, and many Poverty Olympics attendees said government at every level has failed to do enough to combat the cycle.

Comments

[Skookum1]

10:59 PM on 02/09/2010

From a post by "Genuine" on Laila Yuile's blog about the Housing minister's posturing, and which also includes a personala-experience description of the Downtown Eastside by Chief Bill Wilson, which is worth a real (link below after quoted bit):
---------
after all the monies different govt.have thrown at that problem over the years,those streets should be paved in gold and for all the crap I have to hear on this subject is sickening instead of all those bottom feeders skimming money from those resources and use them for what it was meant for(the people of that area not you )this problem will persist ,sure keep diverting attention from the real issue (bottom feeding)and blame the dealers and pimps and hookers and thieves and addicts,and crazies its you the bottom feeders that have an interest in all those people,because my friends they are the materials in which your trade uses for building poverty in which you prosper.What a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in and you want us to celebrate sportsmanship and put on a face to the world !!!!!! SAME no double SHAME on us for letting it happen!!!!!!!!!!
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http://lailayuile.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/someone-can-write-a-negative-story-by-taking-a-picture-of-someone-in-a-doorwaybut-we-have-some-things-to-celebrate-rich-coleman/

[edgemo]

06:20 PM on 02/09/2010

Not uninformed at all thatnks. Take for example, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Single Mother would make $14,725 in payments (which, being below the minimum exemption, is tax free. NOT INCLUDING subsidized housing. At local rent rates, that subsidization is approximately the equivalent of ANOTHER $9600. Again, tax free. Then add in heating oil and utilities subsidies, and the HST credit, you're getting awfully close to the number I stated. More by the way that anyone out there actually working, but making entry level hourly wages.

[Skookum1]

09:06 AM on 02/10/2010

You're comparing a single mother in Nova Scotia with the homeless and near-homeless of the Downtown Eastside. Typical of right-wing equivocators to compare apples and oranges. A homeless person - in Nova Scotia - gets $208/mo for food and sundry, plus a bed at the shelter if they want one (or if there is one). Maximum rent/utilities support is $300/mo, or if unable to work for at least a year when signing up, $535/mo. A few things can bump up the cheque, usually a transit pass for medically-needed transportation, or special food subsidies for certain health problems. You were trying to say that welfare recipients, in general, get 2500 a month.....but if you start calculating in things like housing subsidies (as if all welfare recipients were in public housing, which theyr'e not) then you should also start counting the various kinds of subsidies enjoyed by the upper and middle classes by way of tax breaks, housing grants, business grants etc etc.

Yeah, there's a baby bonus system. But there's no way a single mother is living a life of luxury on the kind of money you're talking about.

Likewise, not only welfare recipients get the HST credit......

[Skookum1]

09:07 AM on 02/10/2010

The gravy train is HARDLY hogged by Canada's poor; it's notoriously hogged by the increasing number of ultra rich who have the money to hire accountants to make sure they not only pay no taxes at all, but who also have the money to buy politicians to make sure the public kitty has valves turned on in their direction. In British Columbia in particular, the middle classes have seen their real income and standard of living progressively fall, finding themselves ending up at the poor end of the spectrum - in no small part because of all the money-making by the banks and the rich which have seen average house prices in the Lower Mainland crest above 600,000 and the big-business-supporting papers start whining when houses worth over a million start losing value...even professional people making combined incomes of $120,000 a year are struggling in Vancouver, even losing money. Like all right-wing apologists, you're trying to blame the poor, and say they're lazy and have more than they deserve......all rank propaganda, yet very much part of the new "ethic" taught in the country's universities, which have all embraced "business principles" and turn out lots of willing corporate drones. The increasing divide between rich and the not-rich (the poor and becoming-poor, meaning the middle clas), is the backdrop to the bottom-rung poverty of East Hastings, which is only the most visible symptom of a much larger socioeconomic crisis....

[edgemo]

03:19 PM on 02/10/2010

I'm not right wing, and I'm not blaming the poor. Not in all cases. Fact is though that many of those homeless poor are in a situation of their own making. Not due to illness or factors beyond their control; mostly by factors entirely within their control. Drugs really are a bad idea, Alcohol really isn't very good for you, and yes, it really does pay to stay in school.

There is a large percentage who simply don't think they should have to live by rules, and that someone else is responsible to see that they are taken care of while they live that way. I have no issue at all with helping those who need it, even those who made mistakes, and need a hand.

I also don't think it's either/or with the Olympics. Indeed, WITH the Olympics, it's both. Without, it's only welfare. And while we're at it, spending a few tax dollars on things that the employed, not on welfare, not demanding 'safe injection sites' public might use and be encouraged by isn't a bad thing.

Vancouver, Expensive? Ask why those homeless people went to Vancouver in the first place: Hint, it wasn't for the night life, and it isn't the heroin capital of the country for nothing. There are many cities with better (I suppose) welfare programs than Vancouver, but there isn't the easy access to the very things that put them in a position to need welfare in the first place.

[socalcde]

02:49 PM on 02/09/2010

Someone that I know from the area said that they have had many school closings because of lack of funds, so she too felt that the amount of $ spent on the games was controversial.

[OneConservative]

07:18 AM on 02/09/2010

With Obama in charge, everything is becoming a Poverty something.

[Skookum1]

02:22 PM on 02/09/2010

the roots of poverty in the Downtown Eastside date back before WWI, to a series of economic collapses in the later '00 decade; the Sally Ann was, in fact, born there. After WWI it became the refuge for unemployed, disenfranchised veterans from across Canada; in the '20s Vancouver's role in supplying thirsty Americans with booze created lots of spectacular wealth on the one end of the city - and even more alcohol problems in the east side of downtown; again in the 1930s became a place people could go to and not freeze to death (and was right on the transcontinental rail line, which was a lot easier to "jump" then). All the SROs (single room occupancy hotels) in the area became built up to service loggers, miners and fishermen, whose seasonal work meant lots of money to spend and who needed somewhere to drink out the off-season. Hotel licenses in BC came with a liquor license (the only way to GET a liquor license was, in fact, to open a hotel), and so this meant that for each SRO there was a beer parlour attached (something like a tavern in the US) and in some hotels, also, a lounge (hard booze and quieter), leading to a heavy concentration of cheap drinking establishments in the area......which had seen similar before Canadian Prohibition in the '10s - one six-square-block area, now mostly Gastown but including part of the DTES - had 300 licensed establishments prior to Canadian Prohibition).

(cont.)

[Skookum1]

02:29 PM on 02/09/2010

(cont. from previous)

Alcohol and poverty deepened progressively over time, and major stores and theatres in the area shut down, with the area's once-busy commercial life migrating uptown. But it was in the Reagan years, and the Bush I years, which in Canada were aped by the new Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, that the area's social problems deepened, and evils like crack were introduced (in connection with Iran-Contra and the War on Drugs, which were GOP policies. And while the NDP era provincially in the '90s, corresponding to the Liberal era nationally in the same period, did little to improve the area, things got a LOT worse when the GOP-clone BC Liberal government came into power in 2001, and they've gotten steadily worse ever since.

It wasn't Obama that created this poverty, is what I'm saying; yet there are linkages to GOP-ite policy stretching all the way back to the '10s and '30s...

[socalcde]

02:47 PM on 02/09/2010

OneConservative, what is your comment to this posting? Can you come up with anything beyond an over-simplified, uneducated and purely partisan thing to say at this point?

[edgemo]

03:20 PM on 02/10/2010

Exactly.....

[tonygumbrell]

11:35 PM on 02/08/2010

There is horrible poverty on East Hastings in Van. Go and see for your self. The games are a lot of hype and boosterism for fat cats and profiteers. I ignor the hype about sports, and vote when I get the opportunity, which is rare in the states, for health, education, and welfare.

[1canview]

11:34 PM on 02/08/2010

edgemo....
This is where the Republican comes out in you? I agree in that you are typical like other Republicans in not having a clue about what you are talking about.
200 poor people in Vancouver protesting is not something that was organized by some welfare recipent who flies around the country and is well funded.
Agree or disagree with these folks and their protest but please don't question that most of them are poor. You know like all the street people in all of America's larger cities.

[BillSoo]

05:52 PM on 02/08/2010

I sort of agree that the games are not the optimal use of resources, but that bridge has already been crossed.

Now that they are here, we need to make them the best games possible. Otherwise, it impacts the chance of us getting anything positive out of it.

On the plus side though, Steven Colbert will be in town!

[anticapitalist1983]

04:42 PM on 02/08/2010

http://olympicresistance.net/

[SmileyBrooks]

04:02 PM on 02/08/2010

My brother has told me of the never-ending line of trucks hauling SNOW up to the games!

One of the warmer witers on record, yeah, I can see how it might make some wonder, I know my brother doesn't see this impacting him in any positive manner (taxes!)

But the welfare system in Canada is another topic. Live by the sword...

[edgemo]

03:31 PM on 02/08/2010

This is where a little of the republican comes out in me:

A group of very well funded 'homeless' protestors, who fly around the country to protest anytime the peoples taxes are spent on anything other than helping them continue to live the life they choose are complaining again.

A welfare recipient in Canada, taking advantage of all available programs, can take in $2500/month in payments, subsidized housing and other benefits - all tax free. For the deserving, and the needy, that's fine, and in some cases, maybe not enough. For the dedicated protestor, the kid who fancies himself a rebel scraping a dirty squeegee across your windshield, it's $2500 too much.

Every once in awhile, it's good to spend on the achievers in society, not just the failures. Every penny spent on the failures is a penny that will never be seen again. Spent on the best and brightest, the highest achievers, the motivated, it will be returned many times over.

[Davey Crockett]

04:19 PM on 02/08/2010

...

In any case, I don't even see why this is a choice between the Olympics and the poor. I think the real choice is between prudent spending and a waste of money. The most ironic thing about the Olympics is that we're going to have all these stupid sporting facilities, and I say stupid, because the government isn't going to continue funding amateur athletics to the degree that it was pre-these Games thus making Canada a bronze-medal (at best) Olympic power in 2012 and beyond. I think the Olympics are a waste of money because they're not going to turn a profit; the government is spending a lot more than the $580 million and $900 million (if one even believes those figures). One can't accurately measure the government spending without including all the other infrastructure programmes related to the games that we promised the IOC so that we could lure them here (such as the Sea to Sky Highway, which was over budget, the Convention Centre, which was EXTREMELY over budget and the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver rapid transit line, the only thing on budget.) Not to mention all the lost municipal revenue that City of Vancouver taxpayers are out of pocket for including, but not limited to, the lost parking revenue (that the IOC isn't reimbursing us for) and the Athlete's Village (that we've had to pay for once the private funding went bust) and will now be selling post-games at a loss.

(continued....)

[Davey Crockett]

04:21 PM on 02/08/2010

....

All in all that money could've gone to better infrastructure programmes, like even more transit, hospitals, schools, parks, cultural amenities instead of 17 day party. That in itself would help the best and brightest. Heck, Universities need more money - that's where societies "best and brightest" are. But whatever, the IOC is running a good scam here getting cities to bend over backwards to get the games to come. I for one hope future candidate cities keep this in mind. I congratulate the IOC on their cunning. They sure pulled the wool over us Vancouver taxpayers’ eyes.