'Aggressive, intimidating' begging in Greerton escalates

A begging problem in Greerton is getting worse according to residents, retailers, a city councillor and a charity worker who helps feed the homeless. Photo/Getty Images

"Aggressive" and "intimidating" begging in Greerton is getting worse, people say, and a second security guard is now patrolling the streets.

The escalation has been noticed by residents, retailers, a city councillor and a charity worker who helps feed the homeless, and the community's rising concerns are being noted by local police and the council.

One local resident told the Bay of Plenty Times this week that someone was organising a group of beggars in the Tauranga suburb.

The same allegation was made late last year by shop owners and members of the public.

The resident, who did not want to be named, said she saw members of the begging group "leaning over a man in a wheelchair, pressuring him" on Tuesday morning.

The woman said it was "dodge the beggars" on Chadwick Rd.

"It's too much now. We don't want to go to Greerton any more."

Members of the group had also been approaching people at ATMs and asking for money, she said, and it was "aggressive begging".

"What they're doing is frightening. They don't look like street people, they look like gangs."

She said the situation had got particularly bad over the past six months.

"If people don't feed or give these people money they will leave, they are making more than most of us per hour. They are an organised gang."

Police Area Commander Inspector Clifford Paxton said he was aware of significant concern about this issue. There had been an increase in calls to police to the Greerton area in recent months.

However, police found few callouts involved criminal offending, Paxton said.

City councillor Terry Molloy, who spearheaded a proposed begging ban in Tauranga, said anecdotal evidence was that the situation in Greerton was getting worse.

Council staff had been doing good work in the area, he said. "Despite those efforts, it is not getting better, if anything it is getting worse."

Molloy said a second security guard would be patrolling Greerton until there was a "permanent solution".

"Their presence is a disincentive to that anti-social behaviour."

He said the begging group in question was made up of some new people as well as some who had been doing it for a while.

Molloy said a Greerton shopkeeper was told by one of the beggars that he was from Rotorua and had come to Tauranga because the money was better.

A business owner on Chadwick Rd, who did not want to be named, said the number of people begging in Greerton had increased in recent months.

He could not say whether those beggars were genuine or not.

Customers had told him they would avoid his store if they saw beggars outside it.

Tania Lewis-Rickard, who directs food charity Kai Aroha, said she and her team had seen a new group of beggars appear on the street.

Kai Aroha feeds the homeless in Greerton on Friday evenings.

"Shopkeepers are fed up and I don't blame them. Some beggars are occupying the doorways of businesses. There are more people on the street and our numbers have grown in the last month."

Tania Lewis-Rickard, director of food charity Kai Aroha. Photo/File

Lewis-Rickard said she and her Kai Aroha team manager felt there needed to be a community meeting "to try and find solutions together to eradicate the problem with the intimidating begging".

She said Kai Aroha had been accused by some people of enabling homelessness and begging in Greerton.

"But we are not. We are feeding the wider community that are vastly made up of poor families and their children and we have eight elderly with us now, as well as all forms of homelessness."

Meagan Holmes, the council's manager of community development, said they were aware of the concerns in Greerton regarding antisocial behaviour.

She said security officers were patrolling in Greerton from 10am to 5.30pm, Monday to Saturday.

A council staff member was also working with beggars and the homeless and connecting them with service providers. "He is also liaising directly with key retailers."

Holmes said council staff were liaising with police on a regular basis.

She said those initiatives were part of a City Safety Plan.

The plan also included the "Your Help May Harm" programme, and the bringing forward of a review of the Street Use and Public Places bylaw to 2018, to consider rough sleeping and begging in Tauranga.

Holmes also referred to the Ministry of Social Development's announcement in February that funding would be given to The People's Project to set up a Housing First initiative in Tauranga.

The project was aiming to be open and operating in May this year.