2010 Poverty Olympics torch relay kicks off Sunday

VANCOUVER – Participants of the 2010 Poverty Olympics torch relay will cross the Lions Gate Bridge Sunday morning to kick off the event in the Downtown Eastside.

Highlights of the one-day event include a celebration with "cockroach cake," meeting poverty mascots Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach, and Chewy the Rat and events such as housing hurdles, hockey with the Vanoc Predators, and the broken promise slalom.

While the mascots and games are tongue and cheek and a form of protest against the multi-billion dollar Winter Olympics, the message organizers are conveying is serious.

"This is our opportunity to get the message out to the world that our government could end poverty and homelessness. It’s about housing supply, low incomes and low wages. There is no excuse for it and we hope the visitors to Vancouver will be appalled by Canada’s record on poverty," said event organizer Wendy Pederson of the Raise the Rates Coalition, a coalition of community groups and organizations concerned with poverty and homelessness in B.C.

Organizers have taken the faux-flame torch on a province-wide tour in conjunction with educational seminars on poverty in B.C that point out the province has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, the lowest minimum wage, below average welfare rates, and "skyrocketing" rents.

The torch can be seen in its final leg crossing the Lions Gate Bridge from 10 to 11 a.m. It will be hoisted on a 10-foot pole and secured within a metal trash can, while being pulled by a hospital gurney.

At 12:30 p.m. the torch will reach the office of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), a grassroots organization that promotes decriminalizing drugs and finding a "dignified" housing solution for the community, at 380 East Hastings Street.

The opening ceremony for the Poverty Olympics will take place at Japanese Hall at 1 p.m.

Pederson said the Poverty Olympics are an important countermeasure to the provincial government’s information booth on the community called the Downtown Eastside Connect, which opened Feb.1. Its intention, according to the government, is to give foreign media covering the Olympics fact sheets and story ideas about the impoverished area.

"Our government is spinning poverty and homelessness as an addiction and mental health issue. Poverty is caused by poor housing supply and lack of support. Governments won’t admit that."

The Poverty Olympics website can be seen by clicking here.