Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the French government rounded up the city’s homeless community into buses, trucking them out of the city. Japanese officials pressured their homeless residents into hiding during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Now, as the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics approach, conversations around how city officials will handle the 43,000 unhoused individuals are ramping up.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass first addressed plans for the homeless community during the Paris Olympics.
“Our strategy evolves,” said Bass, “it will always be housing people first. It will never be putting people on a bus and shipping them out.”
Since then, Bass launched the program Inside Safe, an initiative to move people from encampments into temporary housing. So far, Bass claims Inside Safe has contributed to a 13% decline in makeshift shelters.
Rowan Vansleve is the president of Hope the Mission, a nonprofit that uses government funding to develop long-term strategies for people experiencing homelessness. He commended Mayor Bass’s efforts, but emphasized the need for those long-term solutions.
“Interim housing is the immediate cure,” Vansleve said. “If we allow people to stagnate there, they’ll never live into their full potential and be who they’re called to be.”
Vansleve says homelessness solutions begin on the most direct level — the city council. So far, he said he has helped Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez get 150 people off the street and has worked with Councilmember Immelda Padilla on upcoming tiny home projects.
“The Olympics shouldn’t be the deadline to achieve some optic,” said Vansleve. “It has to be something that we use as a pathway to housing people and creating a legacy of change.”
Dennis Oleesky is the CEO of L.A. Mission, which offers emergency and legal services to homeless individuals. He said the Olympics likely won’t change their day-to-day operations.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we have an empty bed,” said Oleesky, “We’re looking at the Olympics as if it’s just any other day.”
Recent moves by the state and federal governments are adding to the capacity issues in organizations like Oleesky’s. He pointed to a 2024 executive order that urged state agencies to clear homeless encampments on state property as swiftly as possible, as well as recent Supreme Court decisions.
“As a city and as a county, we’ve really made the decision that we are going to treat this as a public health issue,” Oleesky said. “We understand that experiencing poverty and experiencing homelessness doesn’t make you a pariah or a criminal.”
Some Angelenos think the potential toll of hosting the Olympics outweighs the benefits. Jonny Coleman, an organizer of NOlympics L.A., advocates against such negative consequences. He said hosting the games points to a bigger picture issue with L.A.’s leadership.
“The city and the local officials are basically saying having a mega event and selling our city out to rich tourists is more important than dealing with housing, homelessness, the environment and policing,” Coleman said.
Still, for Vansleve, the Olympics could be a catalyst for positive change in the homelessness crisis in L.A.
“My hope and my belief,” he said, “is we won’t make the same mistakes that other countries have made in a desperation to hide people rather than house people.”