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London Olympics Games' legacy off-track for locals

LONDON, July 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Five years ago, Sharon O'Callaghan-Evans watched with pride as her son took the stage in the opening ceremony of London's Olympics, waving a flag to welcome the athletes to the East End neighbourhood where four generations of her family had lived.

A month later she followed suit, dancing with a group of women who, like her, suffer from impaired vision, in the opening show of the Paralympic Games.

Little did mother and son know then, they would soon be living in apartments built for the games' sporting stars - or that an Olympic legacy of massive inflation in local rents would later force them out of their home city altogether.

The medical researcher, working on treatments for diabetes and heart disease, was among a set of locals including nurses and teachers, chosen after the games for reduced-cost housing schemes to help "key workers" afford London's lofty rents.

O'Callaghan-Evans said the two-bed apartment in the athletes' village, amid the landscaped hills of the Olympic Park, was a dream - but one that would be short-lived, as the mushrooming costs of the so-called affordable homes became apparent.

After a year, she was forced to give up her flat after her rents were hiked by nearly a quarter - from 15,000 pounds ($19,500) a year to more than 18,500 pounds ($24,000).

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