The mayor of Tauranga has denied that the council is too soft on the city's beggars, and says local government shouldn't have to shoulder the burden.
National leader Simon Bridges has backed a bylaw that would make it illegal to sleep or beg within 5m of any retail space in Tauranga. On Monday he accused the city council of being "far, far too soft" on homeless people in the past.
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Greg Brownless told Wendyl Nissen on RadioLIVE that the issue isn't that simple.
"We've got people telling us we're being too hard by even thinking about introducing a bylaw. We've got some people arguing and some prominent lawyers arguing that we're breaching the bill of rights by restricting their freedom to express themselves.
"I don't agree with that but it just gives you an idea of what we're up against, because nothing's quite as easy as it might sound."
Homelessness organisation The People's Project is currently working to find people housing and informally persuading them away from begging or sleeping on shop doors.
"But the proposal is to introduce a bylaw so that if those other measures fail we can actually move people on cause it appears that at the moment we can't," Mr Brownless says.
He says begging is a major problem in Tauranga, with residents reporting that they often feel intimidated especially when people station themselves near cash machines.
"Some beggars are perfectly pleasant and have a degree of wit and charm about them, but the ones who get abusive if you don't give, that's totally unacceptable."
When it comes to providing housing for the homeless, he says the Government needs to step up.
"I think Simon [Bridges] has criticised us for not moving quickly enough introducing these bylaws, but really since when has a ratepayer been responsible for social welfare?
"It's clearly the responsibility of the Government, whether it's the previous government or the government now, they are the people that are responsible for funding this, not ratepayers."
He says Tauranga doesn't have the money to pay for housing, and he fears that if the council provides any funding the Government will "simply pull out".
"Constantly, local government has suffered from Government pushing more and more stuff onto them without any sort of funding, and that simply isn't good enough.
"If I give on inch on that I can tell you what will happen, we will be picking up the tab for everything and we're not prepared to do that."
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