The Obscenity of Vancouver’s Olympic Games: Here Comes Frankenstein

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 in the downtown core.

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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Am Johal can be reached at am_johal@yahoo.ca.