It may be a reflection of an unusually long and warm summer, now past, that the numbers of homeless on Auckland's streets appears to have increased lately. Wellington has seen an increase, too, prompting its city council to consider a ban. Sensibly, it has not adopted one. A ban would take the form of a bylaw requiring enforcement by the police, and police are too busy to be arresting people for doing no more than sitting on the footpath with an inoffensive sign or some other means of silent begging.
Their presence may be offensive to most people in a country that spends three-quarters of its taxation on health, education and social welfare, though the presence of beggars are seen by some as an indictment of those services. Beggars are on the streets of cities the world over, rich and poor. In fact, the only places where they are rarely seen are those rules by authoritarian regimes. In developed economies they are a problem of visibility rather than number these days. They are few enough to suggest their misfortune may have myriad individual explanations rather than a social one. Addictions and psychological problems are apparent.
Some of those sleeping rough in Auckland are said to be going beyond begging, to the point of harassing people and even entering a cafe to demand money and cigarettes from mainly Chinese and Korean diners. That is behaviour police must nip in the bud. Harassment that is short of trespass, though, is harder to stop. It can be intimidating to come across a group of beggars in the city centre at night but no law ought to stop them congregating.
Life on the streets must be lonely most of the time.
The homeless are few enough to be known individually to the staff of night shelters and other agencies that try to help them by steering them in the direction of the benefits and supports available. But if they are determined to live rough and roam free, as some occassionally tell reporters who publicise their plight, there is a limit to what can be done for them.
