FEBRUARY 2012 - ISSUE 01 - Massive Magazine

13afford subsidised housing, orbeing forced to be recluses ofsociety because of their homelessness,is apparent across theglobe, especially in the currenteconomic climate. To all intentsand purposes, the Occupy Wellingtonmovement was a standby the homeless that “we arehere and look at how we’re living,pay attention to us and stopavoiding eye contact”.After some time in OccupyWellington and after speakingto Benjamin Easton, I realisedthat the goals of the OccupyWellington were a lot moredirected towards a very importantand overlooked issue – thehomelessness and poverty ofsocieties.It costs $10 a night for ahomeless person to stay in ashelter. Furthermore, they arenot allowed to keep their thingsthere. The shelter in Wellingtonis very small and they’re allowedto stay only from 8pm until6am, when they are kicked out.So, essentially, they are paying$1 for every hour, and thatdoesn’t even include a meal. Ameal, incidentally, is $2, whichmeans that a homeless person,with no income except donations,is expected to come upwith $12 a day for basic needs.The facts about “welfare”,which is apparently so easy toget, are even more crude andsurprising. For instance, StaceyGordon, a well-put-togetherwoman who actively searchesfor jobs, has been on welfareher entire life, filing for her ownbenefits. She has to go throughall the loops of the welfaresystem, and still receives onlyabout $250 a week. In orderto receive welfare, you have toproduce an address, a bank account,and proof that you arelooking for a job. And resourcesand the care given are gettingonly harder and rarer.Aside from the welfare thatpeople receive – provided theyfit the requirements – what isdone for the people who areeven more destitute and homeless?There is no social networkthat actively tries to find thesepeople so they can be offeredcare and help to them get offthe streets. In fact, they’re noteven given a free place to sleepat night and a hot meal. Thetruth is, that in some way thesystem has failed them, regardlessof their own contributionsto their homeless state. No onecan even completely blame thesystem. But we can blame thesystem for turning a blind eyeand seriously letting them downbecause they don’t fit into a boxand are seen as being worthlessto society.It is unlikely the council willremedy this situation, or thatanyone really cares about it asmuch as the people who arehomeless. Perhaps there aremore constructive solutions,such as volunteer projects andways for impoverished peopleto become involved with communitiesand earn their benefitsif they’re unable to work.In any case, it’s quite easyto turn a blind eye to someonewho is impoverished and is seenas being a nuisance to the systemand a recluse of society, butit’s a lot harder to ignore the issuewhen the facts are presentand when there’s a group ofpeople camped out in the centreof the city.However easy it is to criticisesomeone for making wrongchoices or for not doing morefor themselves, it’s a lot harderto care about them and seethem as deserving the samecare, community, and health.Now that the Occupy movementis gone and nothing hasbeen done regarding the issue,it is clear that the movementwas a failure, and that perhapsthe message to society was notclear enough.What the Occupy Wellingtonmovement stood for wasdifferent and more direct thanthe global Occupy movement,however valid their cause. Still,when people are asked aboutwhat they know about OccupyWellington, they still say it was“a bunch of douche-bags occupyinga park in response tothe Arab spring”, or “the peoplethere didn’t even know whatthey were protesting against,they just wanted a reason toprotest”. Maybe the issue ofhomelessness was just somethingthe council was happyto ignore, and maybe they decidedthat getting rid of themovement and paying securityguards to watch over the spacewas a better use of money.