Poverty Olympics Highlights Broken Promises
Article published: Wednesday, February 27th 2008
What do Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach and Chewy the Rat have in common with the 2010 winter Olympics? They are the mascots of the first annual Poverty Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada, a city that will also host the 2010 winter Olympics.
The Poverty Olympics were a fun-filled afternoon featuring a torch relay, opening ceremony, and Poverty Olympics “events”. These included the Welfare Hurdles, Poverty Line High Jump, and Long Jump over a Bedbug-Infested Mattress. The highlight of the opening ceremony was the lighting of a 15-foot high End Poverty Torch.
Groups involved in organizing the Poverty Olympics include Raise the Rates, Carnegie Community Action Project, Streams of Justice, BC Persons With AIDs Society, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House. They each denounce the acceptance of ‘poverty amid plenty’.
“While it’s all fun, we do have a serious message,” said organizer Wendy Pedersen of Carnegie Community Action Project. “We want the world to know that Vancouver has world-class poverty and homelessness. We hope international reaction to the poverty situation in Vancouver will spur our governments to use their massive surpluses to end poverty and homelessness.” British Columbia had a $4 billion surplus last year, yet still has the highest rate of child poverty in Canada, at 21 per cent.
The Organizing Committee for the first annual Poverty Olympics has written to the International Olympic Committee to request funding for future Poverty Olympics. They also urged them to press the city, province and federal governments to implement commitments to improve social assistance and build affordable housing.
According to the organizers, the four partners of the 2010 Winter Games (Vancouver, VANOC, British Colombia, and Canada) have failed to implement unanimous recommendations made by their own Inner City Inclusive Housing Table. They had proposed increased welfare rates of 50%, reduced barriers to welfare (specifically those that are making people homeless), and to build 3200 units of housing between 2007 and 2010. Campaigners say that unless strong action is taken immediately, there could be more homeless on Vancouver streets than athletes competing in the 2010 Games.
For more info see http://povertyolympics.ca/
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