Olympics push homeless youth to periphery

by Nicole Findlay

The Olympics are at heart a celebration of youth. For Vancouver’s homeless youth the 2010 Olympics represented an entirely different kind of game.   

Jacqueline Kennelly, an assistant professor of sociology, is examining the impacts of the Olympic games on host cities and their inhabitants. Local developers and businesses reap financial benefits, while marginalized peoples pay the price, Kennelly says.  

Kennelly conducted interviews and focus groups with homeless youth in the periods leading up to and during the Vancouver Olympics to determine how their lives were affected by the event.  Many are Aboriginal, from poor and difficult home backgrounds. The spotlight mega events like the Olympics shines on host cities can further intensify the disenfranchisement between the haves and the have nots.

“Youth reported disproportionate encounters with the police who pushed them, one-street at a time, until they moved to an area where they were no longer pushed out,” said Kennelly about the period just prior to the Olympics.  In this case, out of the public eye meant into Vancouver’s notorious Downtown East Side. 

In the weeks prior to the games, policing intensified and then decreased for the duration of the event.

“During the games, the city and its conduct were under the watchful eye of international press and human rights observers,” said Kennelly. If there is an upside to the situation, it might be the attention the media pay to marginalized people.

In her follow-up research to be conducted in February 2011, Kennelly will examine whether or not policing de-intensified once the last of the revelers and athletes left the city. She will also trace what happened to the promises of social housing, originally linked to Vancouver’s bid to host the games.

Kennelly’s research is not limited to the Vancouver Olympics.  She has also begun a similar process for the London 2012 Olympics and intends to do a comparative analysis of the two cities. The results will inform public debate regarding the impact of mega-events on cities and the experiences of those who live through and are impacted by them.

For a two-week period, the Olympics focus the world’s eyes on a city.  The ramifications are much longer-lived. Policy changes, once enacted on a temporary basis, often become intractable.

It is not just the city’s poor who are affected either. The additional security cameras installed above Vancouver’s streets remain, resulting in increased surveillance on the city’s citizens.

Ultimately, Kennelly asks “Who is making the decisions, and what are the ramifications?”  Beyond dollars and cents, how much are we willing to pay for a couple of weeks of glory?