Despite the elaborate planing for London's 2012 Olympic Games, it looks like not much thought went into where the people cleaning up after the athletes and attendees would stay.
While ritzy living accommodations will be made available to athletes and other officials, the conditions in which the cleaners live appear almost slum-like, the Daily Mail reports. The overcrowded metal-clad camp costs them roughly $28 per night, and houses 10 people to a room, with 25 people to a toilet and 75 to a shower, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the Olympic village in London, comprised of nearly 3,000 apartments, has space to accomodate up to 16,000 people; it also includes amenities like a beauty salon where athletes can get free facials and country flags painted on their nails, according to Bloomberg.
The standard housing measure for overcrowding is considered anything more than two adults living in a room, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"This is not a prison. Nobody is forced to stay there," a spokesperson for the cleaning company that runs the camp told the Daily Mail. "Many of our staff have come from areas where there is extremely high unemployment and are very happy to be working in the Games."
The grandiose plans made to accomodate the influx of people has sometimes come at the expense of the poor before. The Chinese government uprooted many poor families to continue its construction for the 2008 Olympic Games, and the Brazilian government has been evicting slum dwellers in Rio de Janeiro to build venues for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Games, The New York Times reported in March.
The idea that the Olympic Games offer a boost to the local economy may also be exaggerated. The vast majority of economists in a recent Reuters poll said the 2012 Olympic Games will offer no long-term economic benefits to the UK's struggling economy.