Where have all the beggars gone?

MELBOURNE - Ron Walker, silver-maned millionaire businessman and Commonwealth Games chairman, issued a challenge yesterday: "I defy you to see a cigarette on the streets of Melbourne."

There were, in fact, several, right outside the main media centre where Walker was giving his opening news conference.

But the point was well made: the city has spruced itself up something splendid, presenting as pristine a face as is possible for a humming metropolis of three million-plus.

Social workers are now questioning if this has come at too high a price. Although not of the reported scale of Beijing's Olympian human cleansing, some advocates for the homeless believe that for two months or so police have been sweeping transients off the streets of downtown Melbourne.

Others are not so sure, and the police point to their acceptance of a protocol protecting the rights of the homeless, an Australian first that the Council for the Homeless says probably would never have come about were it not for the Games.

Either way, bag ladies, trolley men, beggars and the like have been all but invisible to Games visitors.

And although the city may have its new protocol protecting the homeless from discrimination, another set of new laws covering public parks, railway stations and other areas forbids begging, preaching, declaiming or haranguing, and feeding or hunting animals, for Melbourne's estimated 14,000 homeless, it may have been too much.

Urban Seed, a Christian group dealing with the homeless, became alarmed when it noted a marked increase among its clients of reports of police harassment, with many being frequently moved on from prominent public places.

The group was also told of a higher incidence of prosecutions and fines for public order offences, giving as one example a man who recently received his first fine for drinking in a public place, after 21 years on the streets.

"We can't be sure if this is directly connected to the Games, but people have reported an increase in harassment and being moved on for things like begging and drinking in public places and the city does want to put on a good show," said Sue Hogan of Urban Seed.

Even if not a direct policy to drive the homeless and unsightly beyond the horizons of the tens of thousands of Games visitors, the group believes it is having that effect.

"There are lots of ways people can be harassed, even without being fined or moved on," Hogan said.

The State Government did try to factor the homeless into its Games preparations, providing A$60,000 for emergency accommodation to ensure there would be places to sleep when prices for rooms in the central city were expected to soar. It also set up centres to help provide accommodation, with a special 1800 number for those desperate for a bed for the night.
Another key move was the anti-discrimination protocol supported and promoted by Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, requiring police to treat the homeless with respect and not approach them in public areas unless they were in distress or a nuisance to others. How well that has been observed remains in doubt.