Begging in the suburbs: The spread of Wellington’s ‘homeless’

Saturday, 25 October 2025

A man begging for money often appears at this ATM in Newlands.

Welcome to Newlands, where the waiting valet is really the face of a shifting and growing problem.

Call it homelessness, begging, rough sleeping or anti-social behaviour – they are a group of people who fall under many umbrellas and rarely individually fall under all. But to shop owners, workers, and locals they are instantly recognisable. Often bare-footed, roughly dressed, asking for money or food.

The response is near-uniform around a liberal city: It is a problem, they don’t need to be looked down upon and authorities need to step up.

In Newlands, high in the northern Wellington hills, it is an issue that has arrived in recent weeks. What started as one man asking for money or food, often intimidatingly, has apparently grown at times to half a dozen. One business owner, who would not be identified, claimed he lived at nearby Wellington City Council housing.

The shop owner wrote an open letter to authorities, signed by nearly all businesses in the shopping centre, calling for help, particularly for the man.

“While we understand that people may face difficult circumstances, this individual’s behaviour has become increasingly aggressive, disruptive, and threatening towards businesses, residents and passersby,” it says.

The shop owner talked of the man stationing himself by the bank machine asking for money, or asking for food then marching people into the local curry restaurant. He could reportedly repeat it three or four times a day.

He would open arriving cars’ doors asking for help, The Post was told. For many, the elderly in particular, it was frightening at best.

At the One Stop Super Shop, beside the bank machine, Manila Gart confirmed the man was regularly asking people for food, vapes or money. She had seen him bring people in to spend $30 to $40 in a go on whatever he wanted at the time.

Says Ben McNulty, one of Wellington City councillors-elect and a Newlands resident, “The reality is, greater enforcement in the city has pushed some individuals to the suburbs where there is less scrutiny.”

It was simply “luck of the draw” where they ended up next, with Newlands the latest but not the last.

“Times are tough everywhere.”

Wellington City Council says begging on the city’s streets - Cuba Mall is a hotbed - is a growing issue, but so far has no numbers to quantify it.

The council could do some things but it was an issue that would simply shunt around the suburbs until the central government came to the party in a meaningful way, he said.

According to the Wellington City Council website, “begging on the street is a growing issue”. But when asked for numbers to quantify the claim, as well as around homelessness and rough sleepers, council spokesperson Richard MacLean said a staff absence and storm meant staff could not help this week.

The Ministry of Social Development’s spokesperson Megan McArthur referred a query for numbers of homeless and rough sleepers, broken down by Wellington suburbs, back to the council and then onto the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Nobody chooses to live on the street: City Missioner Murray Edridge.

An earlier HUD report showed Downtown Community Ministry (DCM) recorded 141 people rough sleeping- a subset of homeless figures - in the capital from January to March. That number was 80 at the start of 2024 and about 114 a year earlier.

There had also been a 5% increase in the past year in Wellington homelessness with DCM putting the number at 328 people earlier in 2025.

A HUD statement said there was no single source of data to show a rise in homelessness but councils and providers were reporting an increase. Work was under way on reliable data.

The earlier HUD report showed the Wellington City Council averaged 28 public reports of homelessness per month for 2023, which rose to 42 last year and, between January and March, dropped to 37.

The city mission set up a facility in Petone six years ago for 20-odd people needing a place to stay. Edridge says that’s a drop in the bucket now.

“In early September … government ministers announced an additional investment of $17 million this financial year towards immediate actions to support those living without shelter. The actions focus on the main centres with the most need, including Wellington,” the statement said.

This included $7m this financial year for up to 300 new social homes for rough sleepers and $10m to support those living without shelter or at imminent risk of living without shelter.

The fallacy that people were on the streets by choice was something City Missioner Murray Edridge was keen to put to bed.

Some left a violent home, from where the better option was on the streets, he said. Some may not have access to government benefits and others may have been caught up in a government crack-down on emergency housing access.

The Wellington City Mission had its 120th birthday last year and, for Edridge, the celebration was muted. In an ideal world the service would no longer be needed, and things had only been this bad previously during wars or the Great Depression.

It is not just Wellington City. The mission set up transitional housing in Petone six years ago to deal with the 20-odd people then needing it. “Twenty wouldn’t even touch the sides these days,” he said.

Upper Hutt, Porirua and Kapiti were also affected and it would be hard to find a suburb in Wellington without someone sleeping out.

The quarter before the National-led government came to power there were 25,866 emergency housing grants. There were 3831 in the recent financial quarter.

But when it came to the differentiation between homelessness, rough sleeping and begging, the numbers were not so good, Edridge said.

“I really suspect [begging] is on the rise.

“People are just doing it so tough.”

While the council could not quantify its rising begging claim, connected communities manager Sehai Orgad said it was important not to conflate begging and homelessness.

“The assertion that there has been an increase in Newtown or a spread to areas such as Newlands is not an accurate assessment,” Orgad said.

“What we are seeing reflects long-standing challenges around people’s access to mental-health support and treatment, rather than a new or growing trend.”

Retail NZ says begging appears to be increasingly organised.

McNulty said this was an “interesting take”. He and fellow ward councillors-elect Tony Randle and Andrea Compton recently met with council staff about the Newlands surge. There was also a purported recent rise in anti-social behaviour in nearby Johnsonville and Tawa, he said.

“I can assure you this is now squarely on the radar of both police and council,” he wrote in a Facebook message to the community.

“Council are pushing hard on our partners to get the support that is required so that we don’t just end up moving the problem behaviour to another suburb.”

Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young works around the corner from Cuba Mall, in many ways Wellington’s most-visible homeless base, and said homelessness and antisocial behaviour appeared to be increasing and, in the case of begging, was increasingly organised.

She recently visited a convenience store on Cuba Mall with a man begging outside. As she left, he was shaking a woman’s hand. She appeared to be taking over from him in a seemingly “interesting business arrangement”.

Reports on defecation in doorways were not confirmed but unsurprising, she said. They were ultimately an out-of-the way place and everybody needed to go somewhere.

There was rumour that so many people were choosing Wellington, and its liberal, socially-conscious mindset, because it was the easiest place to be homeless ‒ not that being homeless was ever easy, she said.

But there was also a big difference between genuine homelessness and people out on the streets, who may appear homeless but had a dry, sheltered place to sleep.

She had heard that things improved in the central city during the World of WearableArt show, which started in late-September and ended in mid-October, making her wonder if people had been moved elsewhere. This is denied by police and the council.

“If you are moving someone on, does it solve the problem?” Young asked.

Greig Wilson owns numerous bars around the city, including Eva Pub on Dixon St, opposite Te Aro Park; and El Diablo on Courtenay Place, which were once the epicentre of the Wellington issue.

He is a regular battler of the council but here it is a case of credit-where-due, he said, as council workin the form of regular visits, moving a set of public toilets and painting some buildings at Te Aro Park, had helped. Regular police patrols were also a factor, he said.

But it seem the underlying issue, rather than being fixed, simply seemed to be moving.

Popular cafe Sixes & Sevens recently moved from Taranaki St, which appears to be a new homeless and begging epicentre (along with Cuba Mall). Owner Rob Crisp, who had to buy a “poo shovel”, recently told The Post safety was one of the reasons he chose to move.

“You shouldn’t have to step over someone smoking P to get to work … staff shouldn’t have to lock themselves in their staff room to feel safe.”