As LA Preps for the 2028 Olympics, History Suggests the City May Once Again Sweep Homelessness Out of Sight Instead of Solving It
Los Angeles is a city in which the stark disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is constantly on display. Some people live in multi-million-dollar mansions, while others, just blocks away, sleep in tents that have seen better days or in improvised structures made from whatever materials were on hand.
But the disparity doesn’t stop at the housing market.
In 2028, the city is set to play host to the international spectacle that is the Olympics. With a whopping $7.1 billion projected budget (with city and state taxpayers on the hook for any overages), this single event dwarfs the city’s $953 million budget for homelessness services in the current fiscal year. With cuts to the homelessness budget on the horizon and Olympic overages all but inevitable, that disparity, too, is only likely to grow.
Who Wants to Host the Olympics?
Los Angeles also hosted the 1984 Olympic Games, and the ramifications of them are still being felt throughout the targeted communities today. While those games were profitable for the city, that was a rare feat then and an even rarer one now.
With just over 2 years left until the games, projections show that Los Angeles may narrowly break even — if nothing goes wrong. That seems like a hard bet to make in a city that spent much of 2025 in financial crisis, is still recovering from wildfires that ravaged thousands of homes, has a massive budget deficit to deal with, and has been contending with ICE agents, national guard, and marines sent by the current president, who has chosen LA as his favorite nemesis.
Over the past 50 years, the Summer Olympics have ranged in budget overages from the practically on-target 2% to the astronomically over-budget 720%. So, making a profit again seems unlikely, but even with the 200+ million dollars in profit Los Angeles saw in the wake of the 1984 games, the funds were not distributed evenly across the city and its residents. In fact, the poorest people paid the price for the richest to get richer — deepening inequalities that were already present then and are even more pronounced now.
Is History Doomed to Repeat Itself?
In the run-up to the 1984 Summer Olympics, the city of Los Angeles worried about the reputation it would get if its issues with homelessness, unemployment, and a burgeoning drug epidemic were displayed on the world stage. Instead of taking proactive steps to address the root causes of these issues, they opted to sweep them under the rug by arresting “undesirables” with a specific focus on homeless people and Black or Latino youth.
In the weeks before the opening ceremony, LAPD deployed 30 additional police officers mounted on horseback and tasked to “sanitize the area.” This process contributed to the tough-on-crime era, mass incarceration, and the militarization of the Los Angeles Police Department that we are still dealing with to this day.
Using federal funding earmarked for Olympic security, the LAPD brought in a wave of new recruits and bought an arsenal of machine guns, flashbang grenades, specialized armor, infrared-enhanced viewing devices, and a radio system for its SWAT teams, battering rams, and a military-grade armored vehicle that it has been using against Angelinos ever since.
The over policing continued to the point that nearly a third of black men ages 20 to 29 in Los Angeles County had been arrested at least once in 1991.
Activists speaking out against LA’s Olympics expect to see more of the same in 2028, despite the city’s promises to the contrary. This time, there will likely still be sweeps and incarceration of low-income people. However, the over policing may take on an even higher-tech flavor through camera and drone surveillance, complete with AI-powered facial recognition and “crime prediction.”
Encampment Sweeps Are on the Way
In January, LA County officials issued a report to local governments in cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Inglewood advising them on a strategy for removing encampments that may be located near major events. The report includes language regarding moving these displaced people into temporary shelter but also notes that there likely is not enough available shelter and that no new funding is forthcoming for this purpose.
Shayla Myers of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles criticized the plan’s shortsightedness, saying, “?You’re not actually getting people off the streets. You’re simply attempting to make specific locations clear.” She went on to say that “It is about taking resources to clear encampments in the most visible locations when you have cameras and tourists all putting their focus on Los Angeles.”
A spokesperson for LA County’s Homeless Services and Housing Department said via email that the county “does not intend to displace anyone without connecting them with adequate housing resources and support,” and mentioned that the county is remaining focused on permanent housing solutions. But as the timer ticks down to 2028, it’s unclear how much permanent housing could be created in time, especially with budgets being slashed and other crises taking priority.
LA28, the private nonprofit organizing the Olympics, said unhoused individuals may need to be relocated “for their own safety.”
Myers feared that the lack of suitable shelter would expose unhoused people to further criminalization. “The first round is to offer shelter, and the second round is often to bring in cops or to put up fences or to invest in citations,” she said.
Atlanta Models Another Path Forward
Sweeps and criminalization are not the only path forward; they are merely the least creative and most well-trodden. But the path of least resistance is not always the best.
A Housing First initiative in Atlanta has shown that there is another, more humane option. In preparation for hosting the FIFA World Cup, the city of Atlanta significantly reduced its population of chronically homeless individuals by focusing on providing permanent housing. The Atlanta Rising initiative managed to house 15,000 households in one year on a $212 million budget, which would be a drop in any Olympic-sized bucket!