Forced Evictions and the Olympic Games: What the COHRE 2007 Report Found

Forced evictions and the Olympic Games are the subject of Fair Play for Housing Rights, a 2007 report by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). The report, the result of three years of research, concluded that the Games and other mega-events are often catalysts for redevelopment involving large-scale displacement and a reduction in low-cost housing. It reported figures for several host cities, summarised below as COHRE stated them.

The desk · Reviewed 11 October 2026

What did COHRE report for each host city?

The report says that in Seoul 720,000 people were forcibly evicted from their homes in preparation for the 1988 Games. For Beijing, COHRE estimated that more than 1.25 million people had been displaced by Olympics-related urban redevelopment as of early 2007, with at least another quarter of a million displacements expected in the year before the Games. In its foreword COHRE noted that the figure it had reported in 2005 was 400,000.

Other cities showed different patterns. The report describes housing becoming unaffordable in Barcelona to the point that low-income earners were forced to leave, and it records hundreds of Roma displaced in Athens. In London, housing for 1,000 people was described as under threat of demolition more than five years before the Games.

Who was most affected?

COHRE found that in each city the people most exposed were marginalised groups: the urban poor in Seoul, low-income earners and the elderly in Barcelona, African-Americans in Atlanta, tenants on short-term tenure in Sydney, the Roma in Athens, the poor and migrants in Beijing, and public housing residents, Romani Gypsies and Travellers in London.

The report also found escalating housing costs in most host cities, most evident in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, and absolute declines in public and low-cost housing stock in every Olympic host city it studied. In Atlanta it examined street cleaning operations in which thousands of homeless people were effectively criminalised, which the table records as arrest citations.

Is displacement unique to the Olympics?

COHRE did not present the Olympics as unique. The report cites a UN Centre for Human Settlements finding, made about a decade earlier, that more than one in seven massive evictions worldwide were related to mega-events. It adds that in 2004 over 20 percent of the global forced evictions recorded by COHRE were caused by mega-events.

The report also lists non-sporting events, including World Fairs and political summits, as cases where evictions took place, and it applied its guidelines to any mega-event.

What rules existed at the time?

COHRE stated that, beyond international human rights law, no specific regulations, guidelines or procedures bound cities organising the Olympic Games or other mega-events to prevent forced evictions. It added that no mechanisms were in place within the IOC to prevent or mitigate the negative impacts of hosting the Games on housing.

The report closes with eight guidelines, including to prevent evictions and displacements related to mega-events, to assess and monitor housing impacts, and to hold violators to account and ensure remedies for victims.

In the foreword COHRE wrote that nobody should be forcibly evicted for the sake of a sporting event, and that where displacement appeared necessary, governments, host cities and bodies such as the IOC should plan within a human rights framework that includes the full participation and full consent of affected communities. COHRE added that it had raised the alarm in 2003 about Roma communities evicted during preparations for the 2004 Athens Games.

How did the figures meet with disagreement?

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on 6 June 2007 that Chinese officials, in their first reaction, dismissed the report as baseless and the figures as heavily inflated. COHRE's executive director said the displacement was an immense uncalculated social cost for the poor. The same report recorded that the IOC had agreed to attend a COHRE conference on the subject, and that there was no word yet on whether Chinese officials would attend.

Housing has since been named in connection with Olympic contracts. Transparency International Germany records that the Sport and Rights Alliance asked for measurable human rights impact indicators, covering housing among other areas, in future host city contracts.