Formerly homeless Tere Rehua outside Lifewise where he now works. Photo / Doug Sherring

Formerly homeless Tere Rehua outside Lifewise where he now works. Photo / Doug Sherring

On her early morning walks, Jacqui Turner sees a side of central Auckland you'll never find in the tourist brochures. Turner lives in a city apartment around the corner from Auckland City Mission, and every morning she has to step around homeless people.

"They sleep in the doorways, they squat in an empty building, they use the gutter as a toilet.

"They go through rubbish bins, sleep on the footpath in the middle of the day," she says.

"They've got these dogs, and you can't walk up the street in front of them because you don't feel safe - they're most probably harmless, but you wouldn't know, would you?

"It's not a good look. We've got all these tourists coming for the World Cup, and some of them are going to stay in the city."

With the Rugby World Cup looming ever closer, Turner is happy Auckland City councillor Paul Goldsmith is championing a new bylaw to stop rough sleeping on inner-city streets.

Goldsmith received flak when he mooted the bylaw, which will be considered in detail in May.

Goldsmith says it's simply about enforcing standards for behaviour, which would apply to everyone.

Such a ban is not enough on its own, according to American "homelessness czar" Philip Mangano, who arrives in New Zealand today.

Mangano, a Bush Administration appointee who now reports to President Barack Obama, will be meeting politicians, including Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast and Housing Minister Phil Heatley.

He believes that homelessness can be eradicated, within 10 years - and New Zealand's politicians are listening.

Peter Ravlic, who owns the busy Mrs Higgins Oven Fresh Cookie stall on Auckland's Queen St, backs urgent action on homelessness.

"People have been harassed in daylight - customers have been asked for money while I'm serving them."

The latest street count, taken one night last June, found 91 rough sleepers and 604 other people in boarding houses and shelters - the so-called secondary homeless - just within a 3km radius of Auckland's Sky Tower. This is almost certainly an underestimate.

There were also 267 vacant boarding house beds, proving more is needed than bricks and mortar.

There are no official counts of homelessness in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand is working towards including one in the next census).