Letters: Priority change needed to break the cycle of poverty

Our city's homeless need more answers, says a letter writer. Photo / File

Arriving at work early Saturday morning on January 27 I disturbed a couple sleeping under an umbrella on the concrete outside my local business.

Initially thinking they were up to no good I told them where to go.

The male approached me, apologised for any inconvenience caused before he and his pregnant partner walked away, leaving their drink and $1.10 behind.

I thought "Hell, Kev, you could've handled that better." Followed by where would they now sleep, drink and eat.

Hopefully, they might be able to find some shelter and comfort from one of the three more new sculptures proposed for Rotorua.

Perhaps they might be able to beg a dollar for bread, as a guy did to me a couple of weeks ago, outside the Westpac Bank.

I wonder what vision our hopefully forward-thinking council has to change the current line of thinking that sees the increasing issues as above, as well as rising debt, unemployment, housing, traffic congestion, pollution and other social issues such as youth suicide that currently plague our city, but more so the larger ones.

While splashing paint on bike trails, seating and walls temporarily adds vibrancy, isn't that just a case of putting vibrantly coloured sticking plasters over lingering, festering sores?

Surely a change of priorities is needed to break the cycle.

KEVIN BARKER
Rotorua

Out of touch idea

Jim Adams' suggestion (Letters, Saturday February 3) to have a massive tax increase on top earners to pay for children in so called poverty shows how out of touch he is with the natural laws of economics.

Highly qualified paid earners would seek employment elsewhere, and those who stayed would demand higher salaries, thus forcing the cost of living to spiral upwards.

But more realistically there is no political party in this country that would risk voter ire by taking up his suggestion of a massive tax hike.

JOHN DYER
Tarawera