In Vancouver, FIFA Critics Demand More for Workers and Unhoused

When a soccer player’s bad behaviour in a match crosses the line one too many times, the referee signals their ejection by raising a red card.

Just outside the 76th FIFA Congress at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Thursday, hospitality workers and low-income Vancouverites held their own red cards to protest their living and working conditions in the World Cup host city.

Union representatives, low-income advocates and residents of the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood told news media the city is ignoring the needs of Vancouver’s most vulnerable residents and workers in the lead-up to the World Cup this summer.

“FIFA is an engine for displacement, criminalization and discrimination, when what this city needs is investment, care and community,” said Laura Macintyre, staff lawyer with Pivot Legal Society.

“We know that the forces that FIFA is bringing to Vancouver are not unique. Instead, they’re symptoms of a global pattern of harm that accompany all mega sporting events across the world.”

Behind a line of news cameras and microphones, Unite Here Local 40 hospitality workers marched in a circle outside the Vancouver Convention Centre’s doors, holding placards, chanting slogans, banging drums and blowing whistles.

“This summer will be the busiest ever for hospitality workers, with the World Cup coming. So hotel owners are making so much money while the city rolls out a red carpet for FIFA, and FIFA will be raking in billions and billions of dollars,” said Cristina Figueroa with Unite Here Local 40, citing ongoing contract negotiations with the Pan Pacific hotel.

“But too many hotel and hospitality workers can’t afford to live in this city.... Enough is enough. Let’s show them that they can’t get away with this.”

What FIFA critics want

A joint press release issued by the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, the BC Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society, POWER, the Carnegie Housing Project and the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition included a list of demands and goals for the city in light of the World Cup.

They include more permanent and portable public washrooms within the two-kilometre radius around BC Place where the seven games will be held between June 13 and July 7.

As well, they called for improved and increased access to public transit, establishing a tiny-home village near CRAB Park, reserving any housing built for the games for unhoused and precariously housed people following the World Cup, and improving public education for visitors about the toxic drug crisis.

“The province and the city have not adequately prepared the people who are visiting Vancouver for the death-trap risk they are entering,” said Dave Hamm, president of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and a member of POWER, which stands for Police Oversight with Evidence and Research.

“It would be naive to think that the people who are coming to this soccer tournament, there’s not going to be some drug users.... And to not give them any kinds of heads-up about what’s been happening here for the last 10 years is criminal.”

Speakers addressed both the cost of over $600 million for Vancouver to host seven World Cup games and the Vancouver Police Department’s near $500-million budget as examples of money that could have gone into addressing homelessness and the ongoing toxic drug crisis.

“If they put even a fraction of the budget that the VPD got for this year into homelessness, I think they could easily rectify the homeless problem,” said Kirstine Fuhrman, a Downtown Eastside resident and representative of the Ayx Community Bus, a vehicle set up by advocates for an encampment at CRAB Park.

“They have no desire to fix the problem. Ken Sim should be shamed.”

City’s human rights plan is too weak: critics

The groups’ press release highlighted three motions brought before city council already this year in an attempt to mitigate potential harms from the games.

One motion called for the establishment of a public-safety and games “readiness” working group. Another proposed strengthening the city’s human rights plan for the games. And the third motion laid out a case for relaxing enforcement of bylaws that penalize people who shelter in their cars during the games period.

All three motions were defeated at council. Asked how confident she was that these latest demands for the city would be met, Downtown Eastside resident Fuhrman was blunt.

“I’m really not holding my breath. If I was holding my breath, I know I’d be dead several times over,” she said.

Speakers frequently brought up their concern that the games would be a repeat of the impact of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games on Downtown Eastside residents and unhoused people. This included evictions and street sweeps by city staff and police, they said.

They also cited the forced removal of an encampment from East Hastings Street in 2022 by police and city workers.

During that and other sweeps between 2021 and 2023, many unhoused people lost their personal belongings, including tents, medications, identification and other important documents, when police and bylaw officers cleared out their shelters.

In an emailed statement to The Tyee, city staff acknowledged the disruptions caused by the 2010 Winter Games and emphasized that the scale and impact of the seven World Cup games will be much smaller than the Olympics.

They also referenced their draft host city human rights action plan, which was created in part with information gleaned from conversations staff had with social and housing service providers and vulnerable residents.

The plan, which has been criticized by organizations like Pivot and the BC Civil Liberties Association as being too vague and weak, does highlight existing rights regarding tenant displacement, staff said.

“We acknowledge that some would like the FIFA World Cup 2026 to be leveraged as a catalyst for new and ongoing investments in housing, shelter, and social supports,” the statement read.

“While the City agrees these are urgent issues that require significant investment from senior government and partnership with the City, ongoing solutions to these complex circumstances extend beyond the scope of hosting these seven matches and beyond what municipalities alone have the resources or jurisdiction to solve.”

But Fiona York, an advocate for unhoused people living in encampments, says overpolicing of unhoused and low-income people within the two-kilometre game zone is already occurring.

“I know of one person who is part of our group, who was told back in February — he was trying to shelter under the Cambie Bridge — he was told by police and workers that he had to move because there was a no-go zone,” she said.

“Already people are being moved along.”

In an emailed response to The Tyee's questions, Const. Darren Wong did not answer them directly. Instead he noted that the Vancouver Police Department's role in decampments is to support city and park board staff, as well as the fire department.

“The VPD and the City of Vancouver have a long history of responding to encampments and/or homeless individuals and have taken great care to approach each circumstance and those occupants with careful thought,” Wong's emailed statement read.

“Effort has been made to establish relationships and provide community supports in all circumstances. The VPD has done its utmost to maintain public safety and address all neighbourhood impacts carefully and respectfully, without reinforcing existing stigma regarding homelessness and mental health issues.”