Bid to change public’s approach to beggars on Christchurch streets

A collaboration between key agencies across Christchurch could look to change the public’s approach to beggars on the city’s streets.

Christchurch City Council, police, Christchurch City Mission and Central City Business Association are currently working in conjunction on an education programme around street begging.

The programme is in its very early stages of development and is hoped to be framed up for implementation this year.

While the direction of the programme is yet to be determined, city councillor Anne Galloway hoped it would communicate to people “their help may harm” when giving money to beggars on the street.

“There is only a handful of genuine homeless people across the city at the moment. The people who are in streets begging are for the majority hustlers, and are often there because they are supporting a drug habit,” she said.

Christchurch City Mission chief executive Matthew Mark said it was better to give money to community organisations like the city mission.

“If the driving force of someone being on the street is an addiction then I would suggest giving them cash is not the best way to provide a solution for them,” he said.

Mark said the number of genuinely homeless people across the city had been decreasing over the years.

“The number of those in the streets is a fluid number but when we did a street count three and a half years ago, those who were visibly homeless on the street was in excess of 200 whereas our latest determination is that there is less than 30 presently,” he said.

“That [reduction] is due in a large part to the work the Christchurch City Mission is doing and also the housing first initiative.”

Senior Sergeant Roy Appley said the main reason police were involved in this initiative was to ensure all people on the city’s streets were safe.

“It is still very early on and we need to find out what the issue really is,” he said.

“The others are talking about drug addiction but there could be some home access aspects to it as well as some mental health issues as well.

"There could well be other issues too that we don’t even know about. Why I am involved is to discover why people are begging on the street and rough sleeping, this is all about improving people’s lives.”

Central City Business Association chairwoman Annabel Turley hoped to the collaboration would help make the central city more enjoyable for all.

“We are not having issues at the moment but however we do not want to end up having issues, we are working proactively rather than reactively,” she said.