The Rio government has been "cleaning the streets" in urban areas around the Olympic venues, removing hundreds of homeless people.
Welfare groups estimate more than 5500 men, women and children sleep rough each night in Rio.
It was enough to push one Kiwi Olympian into action to, in his words, "try and make a difference".
Slalom kayaker Mike Dawson, 29, has been competing since he was 13 years old and made the semifinals at the London Olympics in 2012.
But there's another side to Dawson - film maker and humanitarian.
He's spent the past five months going in and out of Rio preparing for the games.
It was leaving from one of those trips that he had a life changing experience.
"When I emptied my hotel room out one day I had a lot of food left over, so I ran out and just dropped it off to these two boys we'd seen sleeping on the street there," he says.
"And instead of just opening it they ripped it open and just started eating it. They were genuinely starving."
Dawson then started taking food parcels to the homeless with Brazilian kayaker Pepe Goncalves.
"A lot of the [people said] they didn't have family support, they'd lost their job and ended up on the street with their young children, and there's nothing they could do," Dawson says.
"So it was pretty sad, pretty eye opening."
Dawson has since been raising funds to provide more food parcels and help more people.
And even before his event begins next week, this Kiwi kayaker is already a winner.
Newshub.
