The Tauranga City Council is proposing to ban those who are homeless, either rough sleepers or beggars, from the city’s CBD.
Homeless in Tauranga feel that they are being wrongfully targeted.
Terry Molly, Tauranga City Councillor says, “It is never designed to be punitive with fines attached. It was just that when the bylaw comes into place, which won’t be until Christmas, and that’s if it will get through the consultation process. By then I’m hopeful, with the people project in place and the other organisations, that we will have the rough sleeping and the begging under control.”
But today those opposing the proposed changes made their voices heard.
Tania Lewis-Rickard, an advocate for the homeless says, “The bylaw dehumanises our most vulnerable, which is our homeless and our poor, so the idea of coming together is to instill hope through our demonstration today”.
Last year saw 70 people fall under the homeless category in the CBD of Tauranga.
We spoke to a homeless women who did not want to be identified but felt she was being singled out under the proposed bylaw.
She says, “We are part of society as well, we are civil people as well, being treated that way. Because we are homeless doesn’t make us like we aren’t people”.
One local retailer says homelessness isn’t a good look for business.
Glenn Tuck of Bronco’s Outdoor says, “they intimidate pedestrians, customers, walking up and down the street in the general public, constant begging, defcating in doorways, out the back of doorways, sleeping in shop fronts and the constant harassment.”
The organiser of this hikoi hopes to work with council in order to end homelessness.