An elderly man — who spends most of his day asking for money on the streets of Christchurch — wants other beggars to behave.
Steven Murray, 72, sits outside a block of shops in the suburb of Woolston most days because he says his pension doesn’t go far enough to cover his costs.
He lives in a garage, he says, which is “quite warm” with his “expensive” cats.
Murray said he’s witnessed plenty of anti-social behaviour while begging over the last two or three years — and “they ruin it for everybody else”.
Christchurch City Councillor Jake McLellan said he believed the situation was getting worse, with some people using standover tactics.
He said he had heard of “little old ladies at the ATM being coerced for money” and that it was “begging with duress”.
McLellan said the council has agreed to investigate what it can do to solve the problem, including increased social support and law changes.
Auckland and Wellington city councils have bylaws that prohibit anti-social behaviour associated with aggressive begging — but this was new territory for Christchurch.
“The bylaw would be similar to what Auckland and Wellington have and it’s basically a bylaw that would prohibit begging with duress, so it would give the police new tools to move on behaviour that is threatening,
“We need to look at the funding for the City Mission and like agencies are receiving to understand whether they actually have the tools to be the ambulance at the top of the cliff,” said McLellan.
Christchurch City Missioner Corinne Haines said often the people who were begging were not homeless, but simply wanting more money.
She has doubts as to whether any new legislation would work.
“Moving them from where they are and saying you can’t do this here, if that happens often enough then maybe they’ll say this isn’t working for us.
“But the other thing is don’t give them money. They’re only there because they’re making money to spend on whatever they want to spend it on. My advice to people is do not give them money.
“If you want to be friendly with them, [ask] ‘would you like a coffee or would you like a sandwich’?
“If they don’t want those, you’ll know they only want money and they don’t want it for food, they want it for other things,” said Haines.