The blue and white Police tape was stretched between two
lampposts on Queen Street, causing the early morning commuters to step into the
road as they passed. Most of them slowed to sneak a peek behind the heavy green
tarpaulin erected there where Policemen in full body white overalls were busily
marking out bloodspots and placing samples carefully into plastic bags and test
tubes.
Billy’s body had been removed four hours earlier. It had
lain there under a woollen blanket since it was discovered by a staff member from
Dunkin Donuts who was locking up for the night when he made a ghastly discovery
in the shop’s doorway.
Dunkin Donuts was closed for the day out of respect and the
inability of customers to get past the forensics team to their front door. The
McDonald’s next door, being McDonalds, was open, having used free hamburgers as
a tool to negotiate that the Police tape got moved two metres to the right and
that their door was unimpeded.
Fifteen police officers and three paramedics worked on Billy’s
body from the time it was discovered to the time they wrapped up and removed
the tape and tarpaulin. Donuts were back on the menu when the evening commuters
were walking back down Queen Street.
So Billy got far more attention from the public service after
he died than he had ever received when he was alive. Billy was homeless.
Originally from Samoa, he had come to New Zealand to work in a meat packing
plant in South Auckland that closed when its owners realised that they could do
the same thing for half the cost elsewhere. Inability to pay rent had pushed
him onto the streets and then a growing addiction to methamphetamines had
driven him further into the dark underbelly of Auckland’s homeless sub culture.
Queen Street is the financial centre of Auckland and also
hosts shops selling Hermes’s handbags for $8,000 and Swiss watches that cost so
much that you would need a Swiss bank account to fund them. In the daytime it
heaves with pedestrians walking six abreast along its broad footpath. Office
workers mingle with students, tourists and shoppers and the colours and faces
of the whole world can be found there.
But at night, when the shoppers and office workers have gone
home, a different group descends upon the street, clutching tattered old
sleeping bags and dog eared blankets. They all seem to have their own allotted
doorway where they try to find shelter from the rain and wind that charges up
Queen Street like a cavalry battalion on its way to war.
Homelessness is a global phenomenon of course, but I have
never seen it in the quantity or state of destitution as you witness in
Auckland.
It jars of course against the traditional view of New
Zealand. This country likes to describe the place as “Godzone” in the same way
as Australian’s describe their homeland as “The Lucky Country” and Ireland
thinks of itself as “a little piece of heaven that fell out of the sky.” None
of these are entirely accurate of course, unless a lucky country describes
finding yourself in a vast land full of bounteous mineral deposits and
squandering the resulting benefits. Godzone and a little piece of heaven suggest
that God actually exists and is careless about his real estate and doesn’t mind
having his name shared with a laser tag venue.
The advertising associated with Godzone focusses on
mountains and rivers, comely maidens doing tribal dances and the All Blacks. It
never includes a photo of Queen Street at 1am. It’s the country most Kiwis
would prefer not to think about. The dark world that comes out at night when
they are tucked in bed dreaming of sheep.
By the following morning, the street was back to normal. Stressed
office workers grabbed overpriced coffee on their way to team meetings.
Tourists huddled around a map on every corner. And bleary eyed Chinese gamblers
stumbled into the daylight from the windowless casino at Skycity as they made their
way to the Hermes shop to spend their winnings.
Amongst them you could find Billy’s friends, emerging from
doorways and dark alleys with their worldly belongings on their back. Many of
them had left flowers at the spot where Billy fell and some of them were
gathered to swap rumours about his demise and tell tales of happier times. The
Police were around and asking questions. But they weren’t really interested in
answers. The case had already been filed under “Another homeless guy gets high
and falls and bangs his head.”
I live near a large park that has a toilet block and a
shower. Battered old camper vans and dented cars turn up each night and
families sleep there. There are many more people in New Zealand who live in
garages or garden sheds, pushed out of normal housing by unemployment or the
high costs of rents and unavailability of social housing. But in many ways,
they are lucky ones, clinging to at least a remnant of warmth and shelter.
Billy and his friends are at the bottom of this social ladder and Auckland is a
cold and wet city in winter and doorways don’t come with mattresses.
I don’t have all the answers of course and I’m not arrogant
enough to roll up in a new country and tell them how to run their affairs. Many
people will be sleeping on the streets of Dublin tonight for example and many
people will be in on the streets of Auckland handing out sandwiches and hot
soup. I won’t be and therefore I’m part of the problem. But it can’t be beyond
the talents of the Irish or New Zealand governments to solve a problem that
affects 1% of the population.
Billy sparked a little flurry of interest by falling and
banging his head on a busy street. It’s just a shame that I and everyone else
here didn’t show enough interest in him when he was alive.
