The homeless have backstories. Of course they do. And they can tell their story in their own words because they are doubtless no less articulate or intelligent than the people who meet them, out of kindly motives, at such arranged events.
One such event was at Wellington's Central Library, and the other at Te Papa. It might have been more pertinent to meet the homeless where they hang out, if the purpose was to understand their situation. So yes, I am a bit cynical, and also sceptical, about how useful such a stunt can really be. For that matter, what "homeless" meant to the organisers seemed rather vague.
Karen Holland, the admirable woman who manages the local Compassion Soup Kitchen, is actively altruistic, but what she said left me confused. "[People] immediately associate it with rough sleeping, and many people who are homeless aren't, so we don't want to carry on that stereotype. Some of them are but some are also working, and some are in housing now," she said, and I was none the wiser.
According to a 2013 Otago University study, about one in 120 New Zealanders was likely to be homeless that year, "including those living with family and friends," the point where you wonder what they really mean. The country is full of people who'd rather not live with family; wives, husbands, parents, adolescent children and dogs included. Living with friends can kill friendship, as anyone who ever went flatting will tell you. But what I think they mean is that the homeless people they describe live in overcrowded places, and even when they work, can't find anywhere they can afford to live.
Things are bound to be worse, especially in Auckland, though the Government pretends it'll all be fine in the end, either through market forces or magic, both of which are laughably unlikely.
History repeats itself. A 1936 housing study found that a third of total urban housing stock here was unsatisfactory, and 15 per cent was only fit for demolition. These would be the places where landlords park the desperate today, and wonder why their properties are trashed.
There was the point in the past, amid massive unemployment and poverty, when the first Labour Government lent people money to buy their own homes, and began building state houses to rent out, houses that are desirable today because they were well designed and constructed. Then in 1991 state tenants suddenly had to pay market rents, with accommodation supplements for those who qualified, and some state housing was sold off.
It was very modern and daring of us, we were assured, to be tough on the poor, and probably it was for their own good. Meanwhile their numbers continue to grow while we import rich immigrants, and the rich become grotesquely richer. Perhaps the homeless should hold a sit-in in Auckland's Paratai Drive, where crass ugliness and excess signal the triumph of money. Imagine the terror.
People "who might make a difference" were invited to the Te Papa event, said Massey associate professor Elspeth Tilley. I doubt that they rocked along in their hundreds. Market ideology is a cult whose devotees have better things to do than worry about what the great marketing genius of our age, President Trump, calls losers.
Rosemary McLeod is a journalist and author.
