Why People Are Protesting the Olympics

By Monte Paulsen and Geoff Dembicki
thetyee.ca

What's Driving Olympics Homeless Protesters

Bruce Laking has lived on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for 56 years, off and on. Early Monday afternoon, he gestured to a bright red tent on the sidewalk. "Hey, how d'you like my new home?" Laking shouted to a friend.

Hundreds gathered today at Pigeon Park, a triangular slice of concrete in the city's most troubled neighbourhood. They rallied for solutions to homelessness and erected an "Olympics tent city" just down the road.

"We're not here for any violence -- we're here for love and peace," the Power of Women's Elaine Durocher told reporters, activists, homeless residents and city councillors. "We're here for the poor and poverty-stricken."

Native elders led a short march throughout the neighbourhood, beating solemnly on handheld drums. Someone pushed a stroller with the crowd. The baby calmly munched handfuls of popcorn from a small plastic bag. Yellow-jacketed police rode bikes alongside, joking with each other.

The walk ended at an empty, fence-fringed lot between Abbott and Carrall streets. Tents sprouted like mushrooms from the red clay and concrete amongst old sneakers and syringes.

Many of the shelters were bright red, the result of a Pivot Legal Society campaign to house Vancouver's homeless and draw attention to the issue. In coming weeks, organizers will distribute up to 500 tents.
Canadian suppliers of hand grown, open-pollinated, non-GMO seed.

"There's not enough shelters and there's not enough hotels," Laking said. "The hotels that are here are dirty and they're full of bedbugs. I believe the tents will be popular."

Nobody's sure how long the tent city will last. Or where new ones will grow. For now, police keep a watchful eye.

As the Tyee's Monte Paulsen explains below, today's protest is merely the latest incarnation of a decades-old problem.

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