incremental progress

Wellington and its Indigents

Yesterday the local paper ran with about a quarter of its front page dedicated to the story of the death of a homeless man. He had worked in the public service for 20 years, and then had become homeless. He walked around town carrying a bucket and a bedroll. He slept in the bush. The only thing he apparently wanted was a hot cup of tea. He had a huge growth/tumour on his forehead, and he died in the gutter this week of causes unknown, while waiting for an ambulance.

Wellington is different from other cities. In Auckland where I lived for five years, the homeless are invisible. They apparently sleep under the motorway bridges, but they don't walk around downtown very often. In Wellington the perma-drunks and the homeless spend a lot of time in Cuba Mall, one of the main shopping districts. When my mother in law came down last month she was amazed to see them right in the middle of society, shocked, horrified and even angry that they were right there to be seen. I never saw any homeless in Christchurch, and they would be pretty hard to pick out in Nelson; some of the wealthy landowners and successful craftspeople dress so they could be easily mistaken for being homeless! If any one of the homeless in these cities died, the paper would not know, only the charities that work for/with these people and the homeless themselves would notice one of them had died.

What does this mean about Wellington?

Perhaps the city is more accepting of a range of people. Wellington might be one of those tolerant societies that doesn't want everyone to have a job, change their clothes every two days, only drink socially, or get platered only at the appropriate events. Wellington might not even be holding up White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) as the definition of success. Heh! Perhaps the presence of Government, the source of political correctness and legislator of tolerance has permeated the Csciousness of the people, but only where we can actually see the parliament buildings.

Maybe the homeless of Wellington have developed a political strength, and when attempts are made to move them on, they resist? Perhaps the police are unable to remove them from public places because they don't resist as individuals, but as a community. I haven't been here long enough to know.

Maybe it is all those hills that push us together and make Wellington a big village where we can walk around the city because it has not spread out. There is no-where else for anyone to be, so we have leant to co-exist.

There is a fondness for its indigents in Wellington I have never seen in any other community. When one man had his blanket stolen, a member of the public bought him another one, and the story was reported in the paper. When they die, it is front page news.

I like it but I don't understand, how it has happened?

Posted by Toni at July 3, 2003 10:32 AM