The likelihood of the city building an Olympic Village in Bronzeville despite objections from many residents has caught the attention of international advocates following the debate.
The likelihood of the city building an Olympic Village in Bronzeville despite objections from many residents has caught the attention of international advocates following the debate.
About 40 non-profit organizations met Nov. 10 at the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, 700 E. Oakwood Blvd, to discuss, among other things, the possible displacement residents could face should the $1.1 billion project be built as part of the city hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.
The community group Black People Against Police Torture organized the meeting, which was closed to the public. Police brutality was also discussed at the meeting.
“The city is not telling people about the displacement that is sure to happen with this type of project,” said Patricia Hill, who helped organized the meeting and is the executive director for the African American Police League. “We believe the Olympic Village debate is a civil rights issue because it deals with making people homeless if the poor are displaced.”
Hill is also a retired Chicago police officer.
Clair Mahon, an international human rights attorney from Geneva, Switzerland, attended the meeting and shared with the organizations her knowledge of what happens to community residents displaced when other U.S. cities hosted the Games.
She authored a report about the impact the Olympics often had on host cities. The report, Fair Play for Housing Rights: Mega-Events, Olympic Games and Housing Rights and the Multi-stakeholder Guidelines on Mega-Events and Housing Rights, outlines the poverty left behind once the two-week summer Olympics comes to a close.
According to Mahon, residents living in Los Angeles and Atlanta suffered displacement when those cities hosted the summer Olympics in 1984 and 1996, respectively.
The report stated that during the ‘96 Atlanta Games, 9,000 arrest citations were issued to homeless people (mostly Blacks) as part of an Olympics-inspired campaign to clean the streets, and approximately 30,000 people were displaced.
Internationally, in Athens, Greece, hundreds of people were displaced under the pretext of Olympics-related preparations. Leading up to this year’s games in Beijing, the report estimated that over 1.25 million people were displaced due to Olympicsrelated urban redevelopment. And in London, housing for 1,000 people is already under threat of demolition, over five years before the Olympic games are due to be held, the report reveals.
But other organizations in attendance at the meeting said it all boils down to pure economics.
“The city thinks they will make a lot of money off the Olympics but they’re wrong. They will end up spending more money in the end,” said Pearl Tucker, executive director of Future Bronzeville, a non-profit housing organization. “We’re talking about the poor and middle-class here. Historically these income classes made up Bronzeville, and that’s how we want to keep it.”
Shirley Smith, executive director of the North Kenwood Action Council, a non-profit housing organization, said she is not totally against the Olympic Village project but does share the concerns many residents have about possible displacement.
“We want to make sure that residents and small businesses in Bronzeville are not displaced as a result of this project,” she said.
The city plans to build the Olympic Village development on the 37-acre campus of Michael Reese Hospital & Medical Center, 2929 S. Ellis Ave., which is closing by yearend. The project calls for construction of a maximum of 7,500 permanent units and 1,000 hotel rooms that could be converted into residences.
Bronzeville organizations and residents who oppose the Olympic Village may get their wish and have the project built elsewhere because a previous land acquisition deal between the city and the Michael Reese property owner, St. Louis based Medline Industries Inc., for $85 million is unraveling.
The agreement called for Medline to make a $20 million contribution to the project to cover demolition and environmental cleanup costs and five years of interest payments. The contributions would have paid for cleanup at the site.
However, estimated cleanup costs ballooned to $32 million leaving the city on the hook for the difference.
Some developers speculate that if the city changes its mind on the Bronzeville site, it may revert back to its original plan, which called for the Olympic Village to be built near the McCormick Place or south of 31st Street on land owned by Draper & Kramer Inc.
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