Privileged & Oppressed perspectives
I have read many articles on the olympics and how it affects not only “Our” homeless but host cities in the past. The majority of host cities share a common problem with housing there homeless and even when the olympic committees include a positive solution for our homeless it rarely occurs. In fact the situation becomes worse. In 1999, the international Olympic committee adopted “Agenda 21, Sport for Sustainable Development” which cites the importance of protecting the health of vulnerable populations, including local housing strategies, and giving community groups access to information which would help them provide such services. All talk no action as Agenda 21 wasent made compulsory for the Olympic host cities.
In order for the 2010 games to be held in Vancouver, the Vancouver Olympic partners made some bold promises……Part of the Olympic bid was to :
:create an affortable housing legacy, protect rental housing
: make sure homelessness doesnt increase
: lastly make sure poor residents are not involuntarily displaced, evicted or subject to unreasonable rent hikes as a result of the games.
It appears there are a lot of broken promises, Vancouver has done nothing but trick our homeless out of there boarding rooms and low budget motels/hotels in order to clean them, redecorate so they can accommidate the incoming tourists and journalists. Five residential hotels with about 350 rooms downtown have evicted their tenants in order to accommadate for the olympics. It seems the homeless are to be picked up and placed in homeless shelters or moved to other areas as they are to be out of sight in order for Vancouver to look good. ,
Perspective of the oppressed: I believe that the oppressed is the people who are living on the down town streets or living in low income rooms/hotels and the tax payers. Our needy people are getting pushed out of their homes with no where to go to make room for tourists to stay at during the Olympics. The poverty problem isn’t being solved with the Olympics coming, but just being hidden. The tax payers are also the oppressed because they are the ones having to pay for all the construction of the Olympics and wont get anything back for it.
http://povertyolympics.ca/?page_id=2
