Vancouver 2010 Holds World Press Briefing - Community Groups Hold Their Own

While Vancouver 2010 is holding a three-day world press briefing with more than 200 members of the media touring Olympic venues and are being wooed by tourism officials, community groups are holding their own briefings to get international attention for issues like homelessness, the encroachment of native rights, and the environmental destruction they say are also part of the Olympics.

Am Johal of Impact on Community Coalition, a group that says it doesn't oppose the Olympics but is pushing for more inclusion by local residents, said, "because media are going to be going to the actual events themselves, it's also an opportunity for (the organizing committee) to explain the benefits of the Games and what's going to be happening over the course of three weeks".

According to the Canadian Press more than 1,300 affordable housing beds have been lost in Vancouver since the Games were awarded, and the number of homeless has continues to rise.

The organizing committee has committed half of its $500,000 budget to try and alleviate housing concerns during the Games by funding additional beds at a youth shelter, and are also turning a number of beds from the Olympic Village over for sustainable housing after the Games are over.

Johal and local legal civil rights advocates felt they should have had a spot at the press briefing so they can tell international reporters about the local issues, but Renne Smith-Valade, vice president of communications, said the briefing is not the place for community groups to have a role and most of the journalists are not there to file stories. She said, "they are here to understand where they are going to plug their computers in, where they will be staying, where will they get their meals".

Meanwhile members of the Olympic Resistance Network, which opposes the Games entirely, handed out press kits and flyers to reporters and will be holding their own press conference Thursday in Vancouver's "notorious" downtown Eastside.

Network member Garth Mullins said his group doesn't want to see the poverty-stricken neighbourhood exploited "to make sexy TV", where there are so many issues here, reports the Canadian Press.

He added, "we want to enlighten people as to what's happening. I think a lot of people from around the world when they visit Vancouver are very surprised to see this particular postal code in the midst of so much of an economic boom and I think the international media might likewise be surprised".