Beggars Are a Plague On Our House -----On Fow24news.com

I know this sounds heartless and autocratic, which of course it is, but desperate measures are required. Begging is a plague and scourge descending on every city of size in the country. Even Napier has beggars on the street and it's spreading to suburban centres like Mangere in Auckland.

You will hear the argument that beggars have a fundamental right to lie around on the footpaths and put their hands out.

To demand they move on and stop defiling the landscape is seen as the thin edge of totalitarianism and big-brotherism. What's next? the hand wringers might say. Moving undesirables into camps? What are you, some kind of a Nazi?
This is to confuse necessary compulsion to maintain social order and function with some ideological drive to clean up the country.
We also need to draw a distinction between housing issues and begging. The vast majority of people with housing problems don't beg and beggars claiming to be homeless doesn't make it true.

The Ministry of Social Development's Housing Register shows the at-risk category with severe and persistent housing needs has risen from a low of 1641 in June 2015 to a new high of 3422 in March this year. But begging is no indication of housing shortages.
Of course we should be showing Christian or Muslim charity and invite the vagrants and beggars into our homes for a hot meal and warm night by the television. But what we should do rarely happens and we tend to subcontract out our charity.
The first thing to say is that beggars lying around on central New Zealand city streets are a nuisance and an eyesore, especially in a place like Christchurch where people are busy trying to rebuild a city and make it a pleasant place.

The worst thing about beggars clogging the footpaths is that they portray signs of chaos and destitution. They are taken to signify a society in crisis, a society without jobs or caring institutions or safety nets. They suggest a society which can't care for its disadvantaged or one so callous that people are left to rot on the streets. They indicate starvation and lack of resources, hunger and homelessness. We are supposed to think they are poor unfortunates who have taken to the street to beg as a last resort. For a few that might be the case but give me a break.

The most damaging thing the beggars do is spread a falsehood. Their rort is to convey, by their self-inflicted abject condition, a false premise about the cities which harbour them. And the con undermines all that those who are investing and working to make our cities thrive.
Just take Christchurch. The city has always had beggars and tramps. But even in the hard times, probably even during the great depression, the city did not have as many highly visible beggars colonising the central city as at present.
The city, riding the wave of insurance dollars and rebuild necessity, has never had it so good. So why are the beggars mostly men of a certain age?
Imagine those city business people, all paying big rents for the new shops and eateries, having to contend with posses of beggars on the doorstep.
You will never see such healthy and well-equipped beggars and vagrants as those in New Zealand cities. Most are well-fed, have pets, cellphones, bank accounts and have enough money for a smoke. In the morning they will have their flat whites and some sucker providing them with breakfast.
Many I suspect are in it for the lifestyle, not because it's a lot of fun, but because they can't be bothered doing anything else.
What is to be done? The first thing is ensuring the law gives absolutely clear, iron-clad powers to the police to move on beggars whereever they may be. There must be an iron will to enforce the law.
Then the city needs to help the churches or agencies with enough facilities for single men. It could for instance buy a big warehouse or empty factory that can be equipped with accommodation and food facilities and warm surroundings.
It will provide a clean bed in a cubicle and somewhere safe to store possessions.
The mentally ill and weak minded need to be screened out and treated properly. Those taking the mickey will be given a hurry up.
We will of course have to pay but it will be small price for being able to walk down the street without the pantomime of poverty put on by the refugees from responsibility.
A most uncharitable view, it will be said. Well we have seen where charity and soft-heartedness has got us. City streets full of beggars and vagrants preying on our better natures and, yes, taking the piss.

- Stuff