Jan 13 2009
Olympics or Affordable Housing?
Stephen Harper has recently stated that the federal government will not be funding cost overruns on the Olympic village in Vancouver. The city is clearly cash strapped, while a large number of housing units are still to be completed. These housing units are expected to be transfered to the public sector after the games in order to provide affordable housing. A good way in order to look after the less fortunate, but there was an even better strategy a few years back… not hosting the games to begin with.
If the objective was to provide affordable housing, then a large sum of the funds that are being used to build the Olympic village would have been allocated directly to the public sector at the start. Instead, the city of Vancouver put all their eggs in one basket, while attempting a last-ditch effort to formulate an under-funded social service scheme.
