As Los Angeles moves closer to the 2028 Olympics, a clearer picture is coming into focus of what the Games may actually mean for ordinary Angelenos. And it looks very different from the glossy vision being sold in promotional videos and press releases.
Last week, Los Angeles County released a strategy report outlining how cities should prepare to clear encampments near Olympic venues and move unhoused residents into temporary housing. The same report admits there are not enough shelter beds and no new funding identified to support such an effort. More than 5,000 people are currently living unsheltered in areas near Olympic venues, according to the county’s own numbers. That contradiction is the story. The plan to remove people is moving forward, but the plan to house them is not.
This is not new. The Olympics has a long history of treating poverty as a visibility problem rather than a housing problem. In Atlanta before the 1996 Games, thousands of unhoused people were arrested or pushed out of visible areas while public housing was demolished. In Rio de Janeiro, entire communities were displaced to make way for Olympic infrastructure. In Beijing, more than a million residents were forced from their homes during redevelopment tied to the Games. Even in Paris in 2024, migrants and unhoused residents were evicted from encampments and relocated elsewhere in the months leading up to the opening ceremony.
What Los Angeles is discussing now fits squarely within that pattern of clearing visible poverty first, without addressing the consequences. Organizers and housing advocates warn that even a so called successful Olympics can deepen displacement. The pressure to present a clean, commercially appealing city often translates into policing, surveillance, and removal of anyone who does not fit the image being marketed to tourists and sponsors. In LA, that risk is magnified by an existing housing crisis, rising rents, and ongoing sweeps that already push people from block to block without offering permanent housing.
The financial risks are just as serious. A recent report from Strategic Actions for a Just Economy warns that Los Angeles taxpayers could be exposed to billions of dollars in losses if Olympic revenues fall short. Under the current agreement, the city is responsible for the first $270 million in losses, the state covers the next $270 million, and anything beyond that falls on Los Angeles taxpayers. The report urges city leaders to consider renegotiating the deal or even canceling the Games, noting that residents were never given a meaningful public process to weigh the risks before Los Angeles committed to hosting.
Olympic boosters continue to claim the Games will be no cost to the city, but that claim is increasingly hard to defend. Major transportation projects, venue upgrades, and security planning are being funded largely by public dollars, while negotiations over who will pay for policing, emergency services, and other public costs remain unresolved years after they were supposed to be finalized.
At the same time, the Games are becoming entangled in controversy at the highest levels. LA28 chair Casey Wasserman is facing calls to step down after records showed he appeared in files related to Jeffrey Epstein, including a decades old flight on Epstein’s plane. Wasserman denies wrongdoing, and the LA28 board voted to keep him in place.
Mayor Karen Bass has declined to call for Wasserman’s resignation, saying decisions about LA28 leadership rest with the organization’s board and emphasizing the need to stay focused on delivering the Games. Several local officials, including county supervisors and the City Controller Kenneth Mejia, have taken the opposite position and publicly urged Wasserman to step aside. LA mayoral candidate Rae Huang also challenged Bass, stating, “Casey Wasserman must resign, and Los Angeles deserves a mayor who isn’t afraid to call for it.”
The episode has sharpened concerns about transparency and accountability in Olympic governance, which is dominated by corporate and political insiders rather than the residents who will absorb the risks. It has also made clear how much political leadership in Los Angeles is now invested in protecting the Olympic project itself, even as questions mount about costs, displacement, and public trust.
All of this is unfolding in a national climate that makes the 2028 Olympics even more fraught. Immigration raids have expanded across Southern California, and federal agents have detained tourists, artists, and visitors over visa issues or misunderstandings. International travel to the United States has begun to decline, and some foreign governments have issued travel advisories warning citizens about detention risks and heightened security measures.
Security planning for the Olympics is expected to involve extensive coordination between local police, federal agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security. Civil liberties advocates warn that mega events often serve as justification for expanding surveillance, checkpoints, and policing tactics that remain long after the closing ceremony.
Los Angeles has lived through this before. During the 1984 Olympics, police carried out large scale sweeps in poor communities near venues, and the militarization of policing accelerated in the years that followed. Many community historians trace a direct line from that moment to the aggressive policing strategies that defined the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The risk now is not just repetition, but escalation. Encampment clearances, expanded surveillance, federal immigration enforcement, and financial exposure for residents are converging at the same moment.
Meanwhile, the crises that most affect Angelenos remain unresolved. Los Angeles still has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. The city faces extreme income inequality, a severe shortage of deeply affordable housing, and ongoing displacement that affects renters across the city. These are problems that demand sustained investment and political focus. Instead, billions of dollars in public energy and planning are being directed toward a three week sporting event.
Supporters argue the Olympics will bring jobs and economic growth. But studies of past Games show many of those jobs are temporary, while long term benefits often fall far short of projections. In city after city, Olympic venues have sat empty within years of the closing ceremony, while taxpayers continued paying off the debt. Los Angeles still has time to change course.