Christchurch's homeless talk about what it's like to live on the streets.

This week, Christchurch's city missioner sparked uproar after urging the public to help the homeless by donating to charities, not people begging in the street. Others have called for begging to be outlawed. Joel Ineson asks those who call the streets their home what they think.

Abe Neho ambles through a small reserve, past a park bench and through a track created by the many steps of previous journeys.

He ducks through a hole cut into a chain link fence and he's home. The sequential thuds of car tyres, front then rear, repeat like a slow heartbeat overhead.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Life is about to change for Henare "Uncle" Maclean, who lives on the streets and relies on help from strangers to feed himself and his two dogs.

Home for Neho is two tents, a bare mattress on a wooden pallet, pots, a shopping cart and crumpled blankets under a bridge. He shares it with seven others.

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"I had a little patch down Bealey Ave but it's closed down, redevelopment on site … It was an empty lot," he said.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Abe Neho spends his days on the streets of Christchurch.

Neho is one of the many beggars seen on Christchurch streets each day.

His backstory includes a violent incident that resulted in a manslaughter conviction. In 2003, Neho assaulted Mozambican refugee Hussein Ndungo over a $20 dispute with a prostitute in Christchurch's Latimer Square. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

Stuff visited him and fellow "streeties" after Christchurch City Missioner Matthew Mark this week estimated that between 85 and 90 per cent of beggars were not legitimately homeless.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Neho spends most of his time in the city centre, hanging out with fellow "streeties" on Hereford St.

After dark, clusters of people huddled in doorways outside Hereford St store fronts, next to the Ibis Hotel or on timber seating.

Elsewhere, the side door to a garage in an abandoned property hung off a single hinge and exposed people sleeping.

Collective for the Homeless co-ordinator Brenda Lowe-Johnson said she worked with many of those making their beds on Christchurch streets.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF At the end of each day, Neho takes shelter underneath a bridge.

Away from the public eye there were others, she said. A group spent their nights in a derelict city building and managed to live "a peaceful life". They would not allow Stuff to visit.

"The City Mission has got no idea and … I hope they'll be much more transparent in the future. Put it that way," Lowe-Johnson said.

She said Mark's comments – asking people not to give money to beggars deemed illegitimately homeless – "really kicked the guys in the guts".

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Collective for the Homeless co-ordinator Brenda Lowe-Johnson says the Christchurch City Mission has "no idea" what it's like for rough sleepers.

The ratio of beggars with homes to those without was more likely "about 50-50," she said.

On Thursday, Mark remained firm on his claim of up to 90 per cent.

He said it stemmed from "the awareness of actually who is sitting out there on the street with the signs begging, versus those that we are engaged with on a regular basis".

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Henare "Uncle" Maclean sleeps as his two dogs, Girlfriend and Bolos, keep him warm.

'HIDDEN HOMELESSNESS' SIGNIFICANT

A recent Christchurch City Council and charity survey settled on 215 people sleeping rough in Christchurch city.

Christchurch Methodist Mission executive director Jill Hawkey said this "did not include people who are couch surfing, living in garages in the suburbs or in inappropriate housing".

DAVID WALKER/STUFF There are significant numbers of "hidden homeless" in Christchurch.

"There are a significant group of people who are experiencing hidden homelessness and who are unable to find or afford a suitable place to call home."

Hawkey said she "certainly would not want to say what percentage of people asking for money on the streets are homeless".

"People who are asking for money are doing so for lots of different reasons and I think that generalisations aren't helpful," she said.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF JB Wallace has been homeless for six years. He's on a waiting list for a house.

Flanked by his two dogs, Girlfriend, 4, and 3-year-old Bolos – named after David Fane's character in Sione's Wedding – "Uncle" Henare Maclean dozes next to a ramp used as a freight entrance.

The 53-year-old said any money he got was to feed his dogs.

"Once I've made my dog bowl, whatever else I make is just a bonus for us. Usually I just go down to Pak 'n Save and get what I can," he said.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF People gather in Latimer Square, many arriving by bicycle, for a free meal hosted by The Reformed Church.

"It was gangsta" when Lowe-Johnson helped him order a birth certificate and sort a photograph to order an 18+ Card.

With it, Maclean could open a bank account and apply for a benefit for the first time in four years, Lowe-Johnson said.

"And it's empowered him. He wants a house now, which he didn't want before."

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Neho said he lost friends to suicide while on the streets.

Lack of identification, and the means to get it, added to the many issues streeties faced, she said.

It met with addiction, mental health issues and troubled upbringings that often led to criminal offending. That made it a struggle to retain a house and, with the addition of having no home, a job.

"Getting them into social housing is all well and good, but they move in with those high needs," Tenants Protection Agency manager Di Harwood said.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Allan McKay helps out at The Reformed Church's weekly meal, serving food to the homeless and others in need.

"Social housing doesn't have, necessarily, the specialised wrap-around services which make it much more effective for them to live in a social housing environment."

Neho said he lost friends to suicide during his six years sleeping rough.

"There's a lot of mental health on the streets."

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Shane Bennett found a home, but still goes to Latimer Square on Monday nights to connect with the homeless he met from his time on the streets - and to help make ends meet.

'JOLLY GOOD LIVING'

Most days, Shane Bennett makes the walk from Woolston into the city centre and home again. It saves him the $4 required to catch the bus.

Bennett, 50, moved into an Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust flat about five months ago. The house came about three months after his release from prison, where he served two years and nine months for a crime he committed while homeless.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF A cake is served on the birthday of a regular at The Reformed Church's Monday night meal.

"I emptied out an ATM machine in the red zone three years ago. That's why I went to jail."

Bennett said he was living in an abandoned building when, through a window, he saw the cash machine in another building. He then found that the door was unlocked.

"Opportunist crime, that's all it was. I had no intention, I did not know there was a money machine there … and I didn't know it was full of money."

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Along with a meal, volunteers provide free food for people to take away from Latimer Square on Monday.

Bennett said he had been on and off the streets since about 1992.

He had his truck licence and was now looking for work, but he knew the issues streeties faced.

"Some of us do choose to live out here, but why? ... You can have your whole dole in your pocket because you don't pay rent, you don't pay power and you don't have to pay for food.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Abe Neho has breakfast on Tuesday thanks to Brenda Lowe-Johnson, who funds porridge and Weet-Bix out of her own pocket.

"That benefit you've got in your pocket, bro, it's all yours. And that'll all go on entertainment ... You can imagine the forms of entertainment we've got."

"Entertainment", drugs and alcohol, were what Bennett used to spend his benefit on.

"But I've stopped drinking now, mate, because look what it does to you.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Brenda Lowe-Johnson, of Collective for the Homeless, recently set a weekly breakfast up to plug a gap left in the week for meals provided to the needy.

"I don't want to be that obnoxious, loud person that everybody's going to be looking at so now I choose to be demure."

While looking for work, Bennett relied on his benefit to pay his bills.

After rent was paid, he had about $70 left over, which went to milk, bread, tea and coffee, and $20 worth of meat from the Mad Butcher. That was why he walked into the city.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Tepi Amohia, left, and Abe Neho, get the last of the porridge.

On Monday, The Reformed Church hosted its weekly meal in Latimer Square and provided additional food for people to take home.

A birthday cake was brought out for one regular and Bennett was given a mini-roast he could cook for dinner the following day.

"I don't have to come back into town now. There's a mini roast meal, I've got a couple of veges at home, bro, that'll do me for tomorrow night."

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF JB Wallace said many were struggling, whether they were homeless or not.

On Monday, City Missioner Mark said beggars were "making a jolly good living out of it", with one spotted pocketing $60 in 15 minutes.

Bennett said he did not beg, but that meant relying on other social services to help him make ends meet.

Hereford streetie Garry Dickey, 53, said he too had a home he could return to, but relied on begging to support himself.

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In one instance, a single person gave him $85, all in $5 notes.

"The average most people get is just up to $10. Once I got over $100 in a day, most of it I shared with the brothers."

HELP THE 'SINCERELY' NEEDY

Mark said he felt the overarching message he intended to make to the public had been lost.

"It wasn't about saying 'don't help people', it was about saying 'be aware that not everyone is sincere in how they're portraying themselves'.

"It certainly hasn't been to cause any ill or any harm to anyone who is sincerely in need."

Drug-ARM manager Geoff Howard said he agreed with the message Mark was trying to get across about begging money potentially fuelling issues, rather than resolving them.

Howard, who also supplies meals to many of the city's impoverished each week, said many in such public services "walk that line" of wondering whether they were helping someone or funding addiction issues.

"The reality is, whenever you have a situation where you have free money … you will always have people who abuse it. You'll [also] have people who genuinely need it and accept it," he said.

The subject of giving to beggars was "a tough one and an individual choice".

"If you're sitting on a street corner begging, you're clearly not in a good spot, you know what I mean? Whether you're homeless or not.

"Just because someone's got a roof over their head doesn't mean their life's all roses, and I don't think [begging is] a position anyone aspires to be in."

Mark said those who had appeared across media coverage this week claiming to be homeless were not.

"They might choose not to reside in the places that have been provided for them at certain times, but there are houses that they have access to."

JB Wallace, another Hereford streetie, said Mark was "not looking at the issue, he's making the issue".

"What is homeless? ... People out there are struggling, no matter if you're homeless, no matter if you're working, no matter if you've got a home.

"You've got people that are working that are still living in cars."

Harwood said the most difficult demographics to find help for were single men and women, "especially middle-aged and up".

"Agencies are set up to assist families or single parents but for individuals, they don't meet agencies' criteria.

"We see some individuals who are working, earn too much to get Work and Income assistance but don't earn enough to cover their costs. Private rental for one and two bedrooms is still high.

She said once other costs were added "you have a group of people struggling, often too proud to ask for help".

"When they do ask, there isn't really anything for them."