Games should benefit homeless: UN envoy

Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, November 02, 2007

A United Nations envoy who examined homelessness in Canada says both Olympic Village housing and profits from the 2010 Olympic Games should be used to provide shelter for the homeless in Vancouver.

In an interview from his home in New Delhi, Miloon Kothari expanded Friday on an updated report his Geneva-based office released the day before.

"Vancouver said, 'If we get the Games, we commit to leaving a positive legacy,' and we [at the UN] are taking that at face value," Kothari said. "The city will get a lot of publicity from this, and a lot of goodwill is generated, so I don't see any reason the profits that are there should not be put back into the city."

He specified that excess funds should be spent on "people who need their lives improved" and "not go into the hands of a few individuals."

Kothari will include the recommendation in a report that assesses Canada's compliance with treaties it has signed covering social and economic rights. Canada traditionally cooperates as much as possible with such reviews to demonstrate to countries with poor human rights records that everyone should be subject to scrutiny.

But business owners who hope to profit from tourism sparked by the Games are likely to resist any notion their profits should be turned over for housing projects. Meanwhile, any money left over from the official Games budget is already slated to be spent on sports in Canada.

"There will be a housing legacy of the Games, such as 250 affordable housing units from the Vancouver Olympic village," said Donna Wilson, a senior executive with the organizing committee. "But our mandate is to promote the development of sport in Canada, as governed by the Host City Contract and Multiparty Agreements. It's already committed that our surplus will go towards amateur sport."

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