Government is ignoring the plight of the homeless, it was charged yesterday.

Fern Wade, of the Hands of Love Ministry, made her attack after the organisation dished out more than 250 Christmas meals to the needy in Hamilton on Saturday afternoon.

The food, which was donated by local supermarkets, was cooked and served by about 30 of the charity's volunteer helpers.

"The fact that the Government doesn't even have any figures on homeless people shows that they are not interested,'' Mrs. Wade said yesterday.

"The Government has been out of touch for a long time. It's very easy to talk but you have to be out on the street with these people, where the action is, to know what's going on.

"But because homeless people don't have any voting rights the Government doesn't recognise them. The organisation, which does not have an office and is run solely by volunteers, is now urging the Government to set up another shelter.

"We are just talking about somewhere where people can come in out of the cold and rain,'' Mrs. Wade said.

"If they want to go back onto the street after that then that's fine. Some people are on the street because they choose to, but for others it's a situation that's out of their control. They are people who are dealing with a lot of difficulties.'' Last night, Housing Minister C.V. (Jim) Woolridge said there were no plans in the pipeline to set up another shelter -- because many homeless people did not want to be helped.

And he also defended the Government's record in tackling the problem.

"It's a Catch 22 situation,'' he said. "You hate to see any individual living in conditions that you feel are unpalatable but when these people choose to live like that it makes it very difficult.

"The Government bill for social welfare is $17.5 million. We are spending a lot of money on this problem.

"But we are talking about people who seem to have dropped out and just live on the street through choice and its very difficult to address that because they ought to have psychological help.

"A lot of people can have shelter at the Salvation Army but it's my understanding that many of them choose not to because they don't want to abide by the rules.

"There are a number of programmes are being set up but I don't think we are talking about the same type of people that Mrs. Wade is talking about.

"We have social workers working on the problem but some of these people don't want to be helped.''