Olympic Flag At City Hall

Originally uploaded by JakeInVan.

Let us start off by saying that I think we all understand that if the federal, provincial and local governments put as much money towards tackling the housing crisis in Vancouver and helping those in need in our city as they will towards the Olympics then the homless and low income families in the lower mainland would be far better off than they will thanks to the Olympic Games. However let’s be honest, nobody wins votes by wanting to spend hundreds of millions on helping the homless and that such a massive public aid program would never fly.

We’re getting the Olympics, now the question is can some good come of it? The City of Vancouver seems to think so, beyond the economic bounce they’re hoping to get from it (and increase in tax revenue) they’ve got plans for a few projects that might actually help by providing some low income housing. From the city’s website [vc]:

One of the stated objectives is to provide an affordable housing legacy. This is underway through several initiatives:

-200 units of non-market housing have been allocated in the Woodward’s redevelopment. Two housing sponsors have been selected.

-200-250 non-market housing units will be developed in Southeast False Creek, initially to be used as the Athletes’ Village. Council has determined that one-third of the units would be set aside for low-income households, with priority given to core-need households.

- 98 non-market housing units have been allocated for a City-owned site at 55 East Hastings.

- 83 renovated self-contained units will open this spring in the Granville Hotel, which the City purchased in 2004.

I keep bouncing about as to whether or not I’m in favour of the games being held here in 2010. Montreal’s fiasco is a fine example of why we should have never bid in the first place, but for every Montreal there’s a number of cities where the Olympics did not destory everything they touched leaving the city in a sea of red ink.

A more relevant, and contemporary, example would be the 1988 Calgary Olympics where a “surplus of between $90-$150 million was made, with the money going to fund the various Olympic venues in Calgary” [wp].


A lot of the anti-Olympic sentiment seems to be anti-sports sentiment. Let’s face it I can understand why it seems galling that we’re spending this much to hold a super sized track meet, but the Olympics mean more both emotionally and economically. If this were an arts festival or something suitably lefty that we were talking about, a folk-fest or a Shakespear festival, then I think we’d be seeing the complaints about wasted tax dollars coming from different quarters. So when answering try to set aside whether or not you like the sports involved, and discuss whether or not something good actually is going to come out of this.

And don’t assume that I’m fully convinced that the City Council, Provincial and Federal governments won’t make a complete hash of everything. Montreal’s crippling debt is still a possibility.