Auckland considers beggar ban bylaw
Begging could be banned throughout Auckland under a bylaw being drafted by the council – a move described as overdue by advocates and fascist by those targeted.
I live on Queen Street. I’ve lived in the inner city on and off for about 2 decades. I love the Auckland CBD. I love how alive it is at all hours, I love listening to it breath from its buzzing street sweepers to its groaning bus engines. It is a constant soundtrack.
I love living central.
I know these beggars. There are some who have been on the streets for as long as I have lived around here.
I always drop off change if I have any spare in my pockets and bake cakes and donate those at Christmas to them.
Why? Because there but for the grace of God go I.
I walk with my 3 year old daughter down past them, and she asks who they are. I tell her they are people who have it far worse then us and that they deserve our sympathy and support. She wants to always buy them chocolate cookies.
In my direct dealings with the beggars, they have always been funny, gentle, embarrassed and sad. Terribly sad. Sometimes they get a bit raucous, but that’s mostly amongst themselves. They get hassled by the Police. A lot.
It is not an existence that deserves to get harsher, and that’s exactly what banning begging would do. Most of the time, the beggars are a nasty prick to our conscience of the lie that is the pretense of egalitarian NZ in the 21st Century. What banning them is really about is to erect a blind-spot, so that we don’t have to see their pain, their poverty, their reality.
These are the unpeople. They don’t live, they exist and the desire to ban them is to save us from having our conscience shamed. If we aren’t going to raise a hand to help them, where do we get the moral authority to raise one to hurt them?
Tomorrow night (Thursday) I will be sleeping rough for a night to raise funds for the homeless. These are people with nothing, let’s give them something more than abuse.
len brown and john key have come up with a new ‘solution’ for the problem of aucklands’ beggars..
http://whoar.co.nz/2013/satire-len-brown-and-john-key-welcome-innovative-solution-to-beggar-problem/
(excerpt:..
.the head of the inner-city rich businessmens’ society..who have pushed/lobbied for this policy..reminded brown just who donates big-time to him at election-time..
..(and another election coming soon..)
..he also chimed in with that ‘tidy-solution’ message being pushed by brown and key…
..noting his relief at the streets to be cleaned of ‘this vermin..this filth’..as he put it..
..’it was terrible’..he said..
..’sometimes i had to look at them..
..and often their hair isn’t even combed!’..”
phillip ure..
It really doesn’t matter which downtrodden part of society the Keyronies deign to think upon they don’t mask there disdain any more they just plain and simply want them to all ‘go away and die’ – Key’s mind is completely devoid of a moral compass needed to run a civilised society
Given the obvious lack of interest by way of numbers of new recruits – The only thing that sets apart a homeless individual from a policeman these days is that even the homeless person (along with the rest of society) is not willing to participate as a member of a corrupt bigoted club of government paid egotistical hooligans
Respect to you, Martyn, for being so conscientious and compassionate towards the poorest of the poor living in the streets of Auckland!
There is something very seriously wrong with modern day New Zealand society, including Aucklanders, when we have a Council even consider banning beggars, thus punishing the most vulnerable, and authorising the police and others to harass them even more.
Also is there something very seriously wrong with an Auckland City Mission, who have for some time now also had a “medical centre”, to publish a document like the following, advising on their medical staff’s policy towards issuing medical certificates to sick and incapacitated on sickness benefits:
http://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/uploads/file/Calder%20Centre/Sickness%20Benefit%20explanation.pdf
Yes, they now openly share the views and hard-line approaches of MSD’s and Work and Income’s draconian Principal Health Advisor, who has likened benefit dependence to “drug dependence”, who believes that people should be kept off benefits, as work is better for their health and must be kept and maintained at all costs.
For those who cannot work, he recommends putting them into work a.s.a.p. – for getting proper, effective “treatment” for mental health and other conditions.
Hence the Mission does now only issue medical certificates to poor sickness beneficiary clients seeking the service of their medical staff, when they will deliver proof of participating in addiction treatment programs, if they have such health conditions. Naturally a fair number of such clients would be the very beggars and homeless living out on the streets of Auckland. It is well known that many of them have mental health and also addiction problems.
Do the staff and management of the Mission know how difficult it is for anyone, to access and be taken up for addiction treatment programs? Do they know how long waiting lists are for residential treatment programs? Do they know what other hurdles such clients with such health issues may face?
It appears they do not, hence their harsh line on this, becoming apparent in that document that is freely available on the internet. Indeed this means they will in many cases deny the client the needed basic benefit, and force them to look for non existing work! How many employers would hire a homeless person not having much chance of presenting an address, let alone her- or himself in tidy, well kept clothes, when not having a home?
As for society as a whole, I am dismayed and shocked by the cold hearted views of so many. Just listening in on the last half hour of talk back with redneck host Sean Plunket on Radio Live yesterday sent chills down my spine. He frowned on the beggars, claiming they must be removed from the streets, and it appears a fair few out there share his views.
I remember a shocking opinion thread on the New Zealand Herald online a few months back, where an overwhelming number of commenters expressed intolerance about begging in the streets.
I know that some beggars do beg to get a little on top of a meagre benefit they may receive, and which does not cover their living costs. Others do it, because they do not even get a benefit. There will be very few doing it for a “lucrative activity”, if one would bizarrely describe it.
People who beg face embarrassment, get harassed and even attacked. The police take a hard line in cases, but they have no solutions. If people do not want to give, just walk on, I would say. Otherwise ask yourselves also, why are people homeless and begging in the streets now.
Modern day New Zealand is anything but egalitarian, the social division is greater than ever, and sadly many feel they do not want to be “disturbed” or face unattractive scenes while engaging into one of New Zealander’s most favorite past-time, that of shopping.
It is time for people to sit down and think about the causes of all this, and to perhaps dare to think about solutions, to apply with respect towards the most unfortunate in society.
But sadly I see too many being too busy with their individual agendas, and only frowning on those who do not “throw in their weight”, so to say, by working as modern day consumerist “slaves” as they have become.
A “shocking opinion thread on Nz Herald..”??
Well that’s because NZ Herald is an attractor for mob mentality – lowest common denominator mentality.
And the reason for this is NZ Herald has degenerated over the years into a cheap “gossip & entertainment + business rag”, with NO investigative journalism , NO accountibility .It’s focus mainly on small people’s crime, whilst NO critiques or insights into what NZ Govt is really up to, (and how NZers are being betrayed on a big economic scale).. Limited scope for public feedback, heavy censorship of dissenting opinions, etc..
In short NZ Herald has become a tool and mouthpiece for NZ Govt. and Corporate interests only..And keeping the public ignorant. Hence appeal to “mob”(-dummies)
I just want to say how much I hate NZ Herald. I HATE that they award themselves “Newspaper of the Year” (..or something like that..) a title they do not deserve.
The original function of a “Newspaper” is surely supposed to be to keep the public informed in order to facilitate the democratic functioning of the nation.. – in which case NZ Herald deserves a big ” FAIL”.
Surely the function of a public Newspaper is to facilitate SOCIAL WELLBEING – by MONITORING AND CRITICISING GOVERNMENT, on behalf of the NZ PUBLIC when & IF GOVT are ERRING .
BUT: Today this is no longer the case. Today in fact the Media serves the Govt. This is wrong.
Why and when are NZers going to correct this ?
And further, I want to point out that “our” Govt ERRS continually by it’s “policies” that cause actual hardship to people. Policies that are never tested for their long term impact on people’s lives.
Is it not a commonsense fact that without people there can be no “Economic System”
Therefore: Economic System should serve People, not the other way round.
If only “a Few” people are benefiting , as against the Majority, then this indicates a major Flaw in the System..
-Therefore the system needs an Overhaul. (not the other way round..)
IE: NOT people being forced to “austerity” measures in order to accommodate the (flawed)System .
An examination of who owns how much wealth in NZ clearly points to whether there has been an imbalance in NZ’s “Economic System”..
.. and whether NZ’s “Economic System” is truly working for the benefit of all…
For answer to “whether”, refer to, and read Main Article
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