"Of poverty and priorities"

That's the title of an extraordinary article in today's DomPost. It makes for compelling reading. The writer, Martin van Beynen and photographer, Kirk Hargreaves, toured the country looking for the worst poverty and talking to people about their circumstances. His experience is very much what I've found volunteering. And the volunteers and social workers he spoke to are also fairly cynical but keep on going. You cannot not want to help some people but it's damn near impossible to get them to change their priorities. Here are some passages (with the odd comment from me in italics);

(But) in most areas, benefit dependence, criminality, drug and alcohol addiction are not the norm. In the areas we visited, they are.

We find the poor. The worthy poor, and plenty who are poor through their own fault.

A long-time South Island foodbank worker says, "If I was cynical, you would say they all carry a cellphone, they all have a dog, and the majority of them have Sky TV and they smoke. Where are their priorities?"

"They won't go to budget advice because budget advice will address those issues. And it's not just a plain phone - it's got to be an eleborate telephone."

We can vouch for the fact that the stereotypical beneficiary, shy of work and yet driving a good car, drinking, smoking and watching SKY TV, exists in good number. It is a hard heart, however, that doesn't sympathise when the circumstances are known. Even if the head shakes in disbelief. (I know that feeling well).

Ben, 20, of Gisborne, an agreeable Mongrel Mob member recently patched, has a one-year-old, a partner and is on the dole. His dog, a faint-hearted mongrel, tucks into a fish head as his partner hangs out the washing. He agrees work is plentiful in the area but he's not yet ready to "commit" to fulltime work, especially in the wet and cold. The work he is talking about is often temporary and his benefit is guaranteed every week, he says. As we leave a carload of his friends arrive. Big men, none working.

In Waitangirua, near Porirua, Meagan Darwin, 27 - mother of five aged 12 to 5 - still spends $35 a week on smokes. Her power is often turned off and she regularly runs low on food. Twenty dollars a week goes to repay a benefit she fraudulently claimed.

"Smoking is my only luxury. Take it away and what have I got?" she says.

Ms Darwin's children are challenging but happy and well-cared for. She has just about given up drinking because "I'm putting my kids first."

(In Dunedin) Mrs Mehau has three children and another on the way. Mr Mehau works as a security guard for 30 hours a week, earning $11-50 an hour. Mrs Mehau, who had her first baby at 16, has never been off the benefit. "It does feel good not having to answer to anyone, but I get worried how we will make ends meet, " she says."I can see why people do benefit fraud. It's so much easier." (She should know.)

They have a huge new TV, a dog and an old six-cylinder Ford Fairlane. The TV and the new washing machine and dryer are on hire purchase. Recently they had to use the foodbank. In some ways they are the classic beneficiary family, their own worst enemy. (I've said this directly to one girl but you aren't telling them anything they don't know.)

We see many beneficiaries eking out a meagre and strained living. Those living honestly will always struggle unless they budget tightly and live frugally.

Several beneficiaries admitted outright fraud to me. One had a boyfriend living with her, but not officially. He had his own state house (his own?)which he rented out to illegal immigrants.

Many times we are reminded how small NZ is...... no one is that far from a medical centre or a major town. Nowhere is so remote that services cannot be accessed. Ruatoria has a courthouse, a police station with four fulltime staff, its own Work and Income office anda health centre.

We expect to find worse. It seems as if some areas have had a clean up just for us.... We go to Clendon, which is the new Otara of South Auckland. The area is rent with gang violence, domestic assaults and dependence. Yet the house are only ten years old and still in good condition.

South Auckland social worker Emelio Estaban, who has worked in the slums of Chile says, "The outside look all nice and new. The hidden part of the picture is indoors. The problem lies not so much with the buildings but the families inside them."

In Kaiti, Gisborne, a (shop) attendant explains Mates beer - $5-90 for two litres - is bought only by the "alkies". The tipple of choice for the area, one of the poorest in New Zealand with a huge domestic violence problem, is Steinlager and Purple Goannas, she says.

In some areas, people,often young mothers with big families, appear to lead lives of utter grimness. In a state house ghetto in Gisborne, I approach a Maori holding a child on her hip. When she speaks I see her teeth are mostly black stumps (probably thumped out of her). She is 25 with six children. She says she can't talk to us about her life. So bad you can't talk to us? "Yes" she says.

Most tragically we find the mentally ill and the lonely living rough without the support of friends or family.

In Kaikohe on a bitter Sunday we go to Purdy St and find Katrina Witehira, 41 and Philip Robinson, 44, paying $130 a week for a ramshackle house with warped plywood covering many windows.

Both on invalids benefit because of mental health problems, they have run out of money. The power is off and there is no food. The floor lets in a cold draught through a hole in a cupboard and you can see the sky through the roof. The toilet is blocked and they sleep on a thin mattress on the floor. (Hey, but at least they are out in the community aye).

In the end, the poor defy description or generalisation. In the end, there is much to be hopeful about. (I wish I was so optimistic. The recurring theme through the piece is the presence of so many children living in awful situations. The next generation of poor, dependent and often dysfunctional people is growing up now.)