KEY POINTS:
Every morning, after my coffee, I put on my sneakers and head out the door to walk the dog.
When we got him, nine years ago, the lovely breeder from Opotiki made us promise all sorts of things before Toby, the border collie, could come home with us.
Among the promises he elicited was that we would walk him twice a day for at least half an hour each time because "these dogs", he told us sternly, "need more than love".
And we've kept that promise. So I've got to know the parks of inner Auckland pretty well. All sorts of people use Auckland's parks.
Sports teams of every code, families, dog walkers, joggers, young teens in the first flush of love, and homeless men. I haven't seen any homeless women in my parks but they might be somewhere else.
And over the years you get used to seeing them and passing the time of day. You worry when you don't see them for a while and conversely, if you've been away, they want to know where you've been and what you've been doing.
The men in my parks are lovely. They're not threatening, never yell abuse even when they've had a few and, more importantly, my dog likes them. He likes most people, to be fair, but he's certainly let rip at a couple of dodgy characters while he's been part of our lives.
I don't know how he distinguishes between smelly but kosher and fragrant but dangerous, but he hasn't been wrong.
So I'm in two minds on the Auckland City Council's decision to lobby Parliament to bring back old time bylaws, such as idleness and vagrancy, so the coppers can move on the homeless.
I accept that it's trying enough trudging into work in the city centre without having to step over urine-soaked mattresses and being on the end of a mouthful of abuse by some addled old coot.
But moving them on from one place to another isn't going to solve the problem. It's like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Whether they're homeless by choice or because there's simply nowhere else for these people to go, moving them on won't help.
Diane Robertson, of the Auckland City Mission, says a long-term solution is needed, not a quick fix to pretty up Queen St, and she's right.
The mission is in the process of applying for permission to build an 80-bed facility which should alleviate some problems.
But a few of the guys I meet like sleeping rough. Well, in the summer. They'd have drowned if they'd tried sleeping in the parks this winter.
On warm summer mornings, I will occasionally venture up to a prone form under a tree and ensure they're breathing.
I couldn't bear the thought of pootling around the park while someone lay dead just a few metres away from me.
Occasionally, the slumbering ones have woken and told me to bugger off and that they're perfectly okay, which is fine.
I'm always a little grumpy when I'm woken suddenly as well.
These people are a part of our community, like it or not.
When Ponsonby suddenly found itself trendy, it was to the retailers' credit that they didn't try to shoo away all the residents from the halfway houses who'd been in the suburb for years.
The residents would wander up and down Ponsonby Rd, looking for ciggies and grog and cups of tea and sandwiches. The cafes I often frequented were happy to feed them.
One lovely lady used to come into my hairdresser's every morning and would stand in the foyer until one of the Servilles team would spray her hair lightly with hairspray and tell her she looked beautiful.
The woman would give a beaming smile and leave. Not a lot of effort involved in treating a fellow human with respect.
It's not nice having to confront the failings of a psychiatric system and/or the frailties of human flesh.
But I'm mindful that I'm just a couple of wrong choices, a nervous breakdown and a magnified drink problem away from any of them.
