......LEFT IN HER WALLET. SOMEONE POSTED THIS TWO NEWSPAPER
ARTICLES.....PLUS A LOT OF REPLIES WHICH I CANNOT POST IN FULL AS
IT WAS TOO MUCH. FOR YOUR SHARING AND THOUGHTS!
Retrench Sporn Has Only $12 in Wallet! Subscribe
From: makapa 28-Jan 00:59
To: ALL 1 of 33
130858.1
Jan 28, 2007
For homeless, it's no job, no money, no choice
Living on the streets is their only option as they have nowhere
else to go; welfare homes try to help but some fall through the
cracks
By Nur Dianah Suhaimi & Melissa Sim
FOR driver Hashim Eusuff, home is a 14-foot lorry.
After he knocks off each night, the 41-year-old parks in a quiet
Marine Parade carpark and sleeps in his seat. Once the owner of a
four-room Sengkang flat, Mr Hashim was evicted last November after
defaulting on his home loan repayments.
He was unable to pay because he was retrenched. His 33-year-old
Indonesian wife sleeps at her stepfather's one-room flat with three
other family members.
Mr Hashim's plight got an airing in Parliament last week, when
Marine Parade GRC MP Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim brought up the issue
of the homeless in Singapore and asked what the Housing Development
Board (HDB) is doing to help.
This prompted Parliamentary Secretary Maliki Osman to remark that
some people are 'homeless by choice' because there are other
housing options open to them, including subsidised rental flats,
open-market rental flats, or living with relatives.
This is evidently not the case for many.
Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Inderjit Singh said many residents are in
negative equity and, as a result, the banks force a sale and the
residents do not have excess cash to rent a flat.
Of the six MPs who spoke to The Sunday Times, five said they had
handled cases involving people who were either already homeless, or
on the verge of being so.
They said those who are homeless are generally hit by the same few
problems: no job, no relatives and negative equity.
Banks say they try hard to help these customers by lengthening the
loan period and deferring payments, and insist that eviction is
only a last resort.
HDB also offers various financial assistance measures which include
extension of the mortgage loan term, payment of a smaller mortgage
instalment under the Reduced Repayment Scheme and deferment of
mortgage payments.
For those who are eventually evicted, the other housing options
suggested by Dr Maliki are sometimes not viable.
For example, Mr Hashim does not qualify for an HDB rental flat
because his wife is a foreigner. He cannot rent anything on the
open market because he does not have enough cash for the
three-month downpayment.
Living with his siblings is also not an option because his
relationship with them is not good.
Tampines GRC MP Ong Kian Min, who has seen six homeless cases,
said: 'Surely people are not homeless by choice. People would
rather have a roof over their heads.'
Even Dr Maliki's third option of living with family is not always
possible, either.
Of the five family service centres that spoke to The Sunday Times,
three said they had seen cases where the homeless keep away from
relatives because of misunderstandings, psychological abuse or
shame.
Jeny K, 45, will be evicted from her flat in just three days. At
the moment she has no job and nowhere else to go.
She is single and unable to find another single to rent an HDB
flat. Renting on the open market is too expensive for someone who
has only $12 in her wallet. She is also adamant about not returning
to her mother's home because she says her mother has caused
misunderstandings between her and her siblings, who are unwilling
to take her in.
This week, she might find herself in a welfare home, but even there
a place is not assured.
Welfare homes accept only destitutes, who, as defined by the
Destitute Persons Act, must be found begging or idle in a public
place.
There are 10 welfare homes run by the voluntary sector that provide
care for about 1,700 destitute people in Singapore.
Said Ms Frances Lee, a senior social worker at Care Corner Family
Service Centre (Toa Payoh): 'There are some like Jeny who fall
through the cracks and there is nowhere they can go. The last
resort is to sleep in the void deck and get picked up as a
destitute.'
Even for the most desperate cases, though, there is often hope. Mr
Singh cited a case where one resident with two school-going
children lost his job, stopped paying his mortgage payments and got
evicted.
The mother and children are staying with a friend while the father
is still sleeping in void decks and parks.
Although he has already received two HDB subsidies, a meeting was
called between HDB, Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre and some
grassroots leaders. The grassroots leaders will provide the deposit
for a rental flat and HDB will expedite the process for an HDB
rental flat application.
A HDB spokesman said it is prepared to help genuinely needy cases
to rent or downgrade to a more affordable HDB flat.
However, such appeals need to be carefully scrutinised to ensure
that our limited housing subsidies are fairly distributed to those
that need them most.
Mr Singh said: 'All in all, not everyone ends up on the street. A
handful do and in most cases that's because they come to us for
help at the very last moment or after they have lost their
flat.'
