Does empathy actually exist in NZ

Those working in the area of helping such as WINZ and their government masters need to display behaviours that indicate caring rather than trying to run their organisation as a business.

I’ve been thinking…It’s a full time job being homeless. It’s a full time job being poor. Those who bitch about the underprivileged not going out and finding work fail to understand the dilemma the homeless and poor find themselves in.

I’m no investigative journalist and I wanted to meet up with those who were struggling to survive on the streets. What is written below is combination from such meetings. Street dwellers and the poor are workers of a sort, but more importantly they are human beings.

You see the homeless and the poor already have a job and that job is surviving.

You have to get in line for food, for a place to sleep and you have to be early because if you are late you can miss out on a meal or someplace warm and dry to sleep.

You have to carry your few possessions on your back or in a supermarket trolley. You only have so much energy to expend, because without food you lose what energy you do have.

Most of the time you are cold and sore and if the Police find you sleeping on the street they move you on. If you are lucky the police may help you find shelter and maybe a meal.

Each time this happens you lose a little more of your self-respect.

Sometimes you remember who you were, you were a kid who played with other kids, you had a Mother and Father and you dreamed of being a Fireman or a soldier or an engineer. Maybe you once had a wife, you were loved and you could never have imagined that you’d end up on the street.

Yet many of us who have never been homeless, never had to beg for food are simply so highly critical and instantly play the blame game without the full realisation and understanding that but for the hand of fate we too could find ourselves homeless and poor. And many elderly are falling into that category.

It’s so easy to blame the individual for his or her situation when maybe we should stop being so individualistic and search for the causes of the circumstances that individuals find themselves locked into.

Many of those trapped on the streets simply curl up in the darkness after covering themselves with newspapers or cardboard or if they are lucky a stinking blanket and hope that they may die before the morning frost arrives.

While some actually help them as best they can others [not many] scorn and humiliate.

They live not by the week or the year but by the minute or the hour.

The poor and the homeless won’t just disappear; they will be with us forever unless we collectively do something about it. Getting rid poverty is difficult but it is connected to society’s greed, not the greed of the poor and homeless. Obviously they are not greedy because they’ve got nothing.

We need to control our greed and think collectively at the ways and means of sharing our wealth on a national basis.

A Universal Basic Income could and would be a huge step forward in lessoning poverty. Other more enlightened societies are recognising that fact. We should too. Universality is the key because it introduces a sense of community.

Those working in the area of helping such as WINZ and their government masters need to display behaviours that indicate caring rather than trying to run their organisation as a business.

Wheeler's Corner NZ also produces a weekly news letter by email covering various aspects of the NZ scene if you would like to read it rather than by blog please just send an email to: wheeler@inspire.net.nz and I will included you on the mailing list.


Peter J Wheeler wheeler@inspire.net.nz