Speaker by Various Artists

9000138936 - Homeless Budget - Customer Response.p.pdf

The council document relating to Six’s adjunct.

Thank you Six. Couldn't agree more. And hell, you'd be in a position to know.

Begging has also become a Wellington City Council election issue with clear differences between the left and the right.

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=87762

It's a place that homeless people can drink cups of tea with art students.

Kind of like a cat cafe?
Those art students are awfully cuddly...
;- )

Chchch used to have a similar set up called Floyds, which was struggling to get back on its feet and the earthquakes finished off - a pale remnant exists....
http://ngoupdater.org.nz/community-organisations/friends-of-floyds/?PHPSESSID=6917c688f0d38f622eaeca1eecc9d6ab

There is a mental health foundation drop in centre in Phillipstown, and a youth drop in centre - but they're not quite the same set up.

I had a brief discussion with Cr Sarah Free in Wellington about the whole "text this number to donate money to the council instead of giving to beggars" campaign WCC was running, and my position was that a lot of the people begging on the street are doing so because for whatever reason they can't manage the bureaucracy required to get a benefit and that a WCC fund would just be more of the same kind of hoops to jump through.

Since they folded the pilot scheme shortly afterward, I don't think I was the only person giving them feedback that the idea was a bit wrongheaded.

It was with somewhat mixed feelings that I read that Wellington was seen as a soft-touch by street beggars. (Quote from memory: "You don't go hungry in Wellington"). I'd prefer to live in a country that didn't have people who needed to beg to get by, but if we don't have a system that will look after those people, I'm glad that some of the people with means have some compassion towards them.

I remember one day in the mid 199os when Martan was running some weather boards thru the table saw, someone in the other room was making screeching noises to possibly reduce anxiety.

One very still evening I was sharpening an axe before cutting firewood. After each stroke of the stone I noticed a curious delayed echo. Wondering if it was due to some rare atmospheric condition I looked around for a cause, but all I could see was two young guinea pigs, who'd emerged from their nest and were watching me intently.

Surely it couldn't be them I thought, wandering over for a closer look. Leaning in close I idly attempted to imitate the sound by grinding my teeth. Instantly the pigs did it right back, loudly and rapidly chattering their teeth as if to say "You got it!" Anxiety, empathy, it's a deep animal thing.

Shades of Elizabethan England. What next? I know, let's bring back the pillory, whipping and the poorhouse!

Toi Ora live art in Putiki St along Gt Nth Rd from Karangahape Rd.

Banning begging is basically an admission of being too embarrassed to confront the root of the problem. What then if there were thousands of homeless, instead of just dozens?

Thank you Lilith,

You can't keeping just taking things away from people, without some sort of reciprocal action.

It is basic physics.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

If you ban begging, then pan-handlers start doing what?

; ) Six

All indicators imply an increase in homelessness.

Auckland City Mission and Lifewise are overwhelmed and unmotivated.

We are seeing older people, younger people, more women, educated people and even employed people sleeping rough.

It is a sub culture. Almost invisible.

There is an economy.

Their is a power system, enforcers, tax men and boogeymen too.

A society, which operates in plain view yet remains predominantly invisible.

X Six

That's an amazing story Joe.

X Six

Anxiety, empathy, it’s a deep animal thing.

This may be tangential, but an interesting read and insight...
http://mosaicscience.com/story/australia-traditional-bush-healers-ngangkari

Treating social and mental health issues is a cultural activity as much as a medical one. For tens of thousands of years, the ngangkari have played a significant role in their communities, and they still do today.
...
Rubbing, massage and touch – pampuni – are all important in ngangkari practice, along with singing and dancing – inma – and a blowing technique that is a bit like soothing a child by blowing on a graze. But plants are a vital component. The desert fuchsia is also known as ‘medicine number one’ and, like many of the plants used by ngangkari, it contains active compounds with medicinal potential.
Plants from all over the world have provided treatments for mainstream medicine, not least Australia’s native eucalyptus tree, which has decongestant properties. In recent years, scientists have identified antibacterial compounds in the desert fuchsia, and the World Health Organization has reported on the antiviral potential of the Casuarina tree, native to Australia and other countries. An Aboriginal ‘pharmacopoeia’ documenting indigenous medicines, their active compounds and their traditional uses was published in 1988, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is currently working with indigenous people on a new atlas of medicinal plants to preserve more of this knowledge in print.
Medicinal activity and 60,000 years of practice are not enough for ngangkari treatments to be recognised and regulated as part of mainstream healthcare, however, and some campaigners feel this is a big problem for the health of indigenous people.

I'm struggling to think what possible new regulation a so-called centre-right candidate thinks begging needs beyond the current restraints under the Crimes Act and common law. Sounds like nanny state to me.

They are trying to treat the symptom rather than the disease. We didn’t have begging, or at least not so pervasively, before Douglas & Richardson did their dirty work.

It’s the same in London; I was shocked at the level of deprivation I witnessed during the 90s after having seen a prosperous, democratic socialist London during the 1960s. Thatcher has a lot to answer for.

I'm struggling to think what possible new regulation a so-called centre-right candidate thinks begging needs beyond the current restraints under the Crimes Act and common law. Sounds like nanny state to me.

Or paternalism, to put it another way. The desperate need to be seen to be doing something, otherwise known as attacking the symptom.

Sistar Six: "If you ban begging, then pan-handlers start doing what?"
At best, the begging won't stop, it'll just happen elsewhere. At worst, anything could happen - maybe beggars are forced to turn to mugging, maybe they'll start getting ideas from Che Guevara. The ban-the-homeless crowd better hope that doesn't happen.