Downtown Eastside's Poverty Olympics

Stuart Neatby — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:48:11 +0000

Vancouver residents deem Olympics a "countdown to international embarrassment"

On February 3, 2008, the first annual Poverty Olympics were held at the Carnegie Library in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Just in time for the two-year countdown to the 2010 Winter Games, the event was held to inform international media of the current poverty and homelessness situation in Vancouver. Despite being described as a "massive crisis" by UN observer Miloon Kothari in 2007, the city and province have done very little to rectify the numerous humanitarian issues that have become more pressing with the arrival of the global mega-event. Already, several residential hotels have been bought out by developing companies and rising rental costs have displaced hundreds.

David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society remarks that, "the countdown to the Games is quickly turning into a countdown to international embarrassment."

The Poverty Olympics was organized by a coalition of community groups and organisations, such as VANDU, the Carnegie Community Action Project, Raise the Rates, Streams of Justice, and the BC Persons with AIDS Society, which combined their efforts to put on the event.

Instead of launching off ski slopes, the Poverty Olympics featured Welfare Hurdles, the Poverty-Line High Jump, and Long Jumps over Bedbug-Infested Mattresses.

Throughout the day, the spirit of the Eastside community truly shined. Trish Garner from Raise the Rates notes, "I've just never seen a community like it...They really care for each other. And I think that's what happens when they're struggling; they have to band together."

A version of this photo essay first appeared in the Ubyssey.

Nerf

Torch

Moment of Silence

Jean Swanson

Oh Canada

Poverty Line High Jump

Welfare Hurdles

Social Cleansing

Housing is a Right

Construction

The Dominion - coast salish territory

Downtown Eastside's Poverty Olympics