Homeless in Vancouver Olympic security zones to be "removed"

From the Globe and Mail this morning - I don't understand what "removed" means. Removed? To where? How?

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STEPHANIE LEVITZ

The Canadian Press

March 27, 2009 at 2:22 AM EDT

VANCOUVER — Homeless people living within 2010 Olympic security zones will be removed by police during the Games in Vancouver.

But deputy police chief Steve Sweeney said Thursday the homeless will be offered space in shelters or given help to go wherever they want, and only arrested if they refuse to move.

Deputy Chief Sweeney's comments came at a packed community forum on Olympic security held in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

He and RCMP Assistant Commissioner Bud Mercer, who is overseeing security for the Games next February, ran up against seven years of suspicion and rumour about a police crackdown during the Olympics.

People raised concerns about protests, surveillance and a potential rash of pre-Game arrests but Mr. Mercer said tried to calm fears of a crackdown.

“If it's legal today, it will be legal in 2010,” said Mr. Mercer.

Deputy Chief Sweeney said there was no plan to sweep Vancouver's streets of marginalized people.

“We will not be engaging in any kind of social cleansing,” Deputy Chief Sweeney said.

Laura Track of Pivot Legal Society, which advocates for the impoverished, said she thinks the forum will go a little way toward easing some fears in the community.

But the meeting fell short of full community consultation on Olympic security issues that she said had been promised.

Ms. Track said she hopes that will happen before security plans for the Games are finalized.

Olympic security — budgeted at $900 million — being handled led by the RCMP, with involvement of local police, private security and the Canadian military.