Olympics making Vancouver housing crisis worse: critic

From EndCanadianPoverty.ca

• Date: February 12th, 2007
• Source: CBC News
• Link to article: Olympics making Vancouver housing crisis worse: critic

"An outspoken critic of the Vancouver Winter Olympics has sounded the alarm about the loss of low-cost housing in the city.

Kim Kerr's warning came Monday, the same day the Olympic organizing committee officially began its three-year countdown to the 2010 Games.

Kerr, of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, said the Olympics is squeezing low-cost housing in his neighbourhood, Canada's poorest postal code.

Seventeen run-down, single-room-occupancy hotel buildings (SROs) in the district have been sold in the past year, he pointed out, and several others are about to be auctioned off in preparation for the Games.

People are being thrown out of their accommodations because developers can make more money turning the SROs into expensive condos on what is prime city real estate, Kerr said. As the pace of redevelopment picks up, he added, homelessness is becoming increasingly severe.

"This is oceanfront property, and obviously this is seen as ripe for development," Kerr said. "What we maintain is that the Olympics puts a timetable on this.""