HomeResourcesNewsPosts of the late former Law Society President Adrian Tan has been published as a book律师公会已故前会长陈锦海 曾发表贴文已结集成书
News
Posts of the late former Law Society President Adrian Tan has been published as a book 律师公会已故前会长陈锦海 曾发表贴文已结集成书
John Doe
LinkedIn posts by the late Mr Adrian Tan have recently been compiled and published as a book, titled “If I were King of Singapore”.
All proceeds from the book will go to the Adrian Tan Memorial Fund, which is set up by Mrs Adrian Tan and managed by the Community Foundation of Singapore (CFS).
This fund focuses on two primary causes that are close to Adrian’s heart: ensuring marginalised communities have access to legal services through Pro Bono SG and advocating the welfare of migrant workers.
LinkedIn posts by the late Mr Adrian Tan have recently been compiled and published as a book, titled “If I were King of Singapore”.
All proceeds from the book will go to the Adrian Tan Memorial Fund, which is set up by Mrs Adrian Tan and managed by the Community Foundation of Singapore (CFS).
This fund focuses on two primary causes that are close to Adrian’s heart: ensuring marginalised communities have access to legal services through Pro Bono SG and advocating the welfare of migrant workers.
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News
Fewer homeless people sleeping on S’pore streets last year; city area has highest number
John Doe
The number of homeless people in Singapore fell slightly last year, at a time when homelessness was on the rise in many countries amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the issue of homelessness also became less visible, as more people who would have slept on the streets went to stay at temporary shelters.
The competition was organised by City Harvest Community Services Association and received support from FUN! Fund, a Community Impact Fund jointly established by the Community Foundation of Singapore and the Agency for Integrated Care, with the aim of addressing social isolation among the elderly.
The second nationwide street count of the homeless here found 1,036 people last year – 7 per cent less than the 1,115 people during the first such count in 2019.
That first nationwide street count has been described as a landmark study of an issue that was hidden from public discourse until recent years.
While the overall number has fallen slightly, where the homeless make their bed for the night has also changed.
The second street count found that those sleeping on the streets fell by 41 per cent from 1,050 in 2019 to 616 last year, while those staying at a temporary shelter for the homeless shot up from 65 to 420 in the same time period.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, led a team of researchers at the school’s Social Inclusion Project to do the street count. They were aided by over 200 volunteers who pounded the streets, including combing 12,000 blocks of flats, late at night between February and April last year to count the number of people sleeping in public spaces.
The data on the number staying at temporary shelters for the homeless, which was provided by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), was included for the first time in last year’s count for a fuller understanding of the state of homelessness here.
The 78-page report was released on Thursday (Aug 11). The project was not commissioned by the Government and was funded by the Community Foundation of Singapore, Dr Ng said.
He said government agencies and volunteers reached out to those sleeping rough during the circuit breaker in 2020 to refer them to shelters and many of the homeless, who were also concerned about their health and safety, decided to go into one.
Some religious and charity groups opened their premises for the homeless for the night, as demand for places in such Safe Sound Sleeping Places soared. Two new transitional shelters, which offer a longer stay, also started operation in January last year, the report said.
These factors led to more staying at shelters and fewer on the streets, Dr Ng said.
From the second street count, the homeless were found sleeping in most parts of Singapore, from Bedok to Jurong West to Yishun. But more of them were found in larger, older and poorer neighbourhoods.
Some 72 persons were found sleeping in the City area, or downtown, which has the largest number of homeless persons.
The city area, or downtown, has the largest number of homeless people, though it fell last year from the 2019 count.
Most of the homeless are elderly men and the report pointed out that few women sleep on the streets due to safety concerns.
Last year’s count found a sharp decline in those sleeping rough in commercial buildings, like shopping malls and office blocks, and more slept at places like void decks, parks and playgrounds.
The report pointed out that while the pandemic triggered their admission into a shelter, the homeless person’s housing woes started long before Covid-19 struck.
Highly subsidised public rental housing will always be the last safety net for the most vulnerable, Dr Ng said.
However, he singled out the design of the Joint Singles Scheme, which is under the public rental housing scheme, as a “significant contributing factor to homelessness”. This is because two singles, who are often strangers, share a tiny HDB rental flat which usually have no bedrooms, and the lack of privacy or personal space may lead to conflict.
And some would rather sleep on the streets instead, he said.
The HDB and the Ministry of National Development (MND) recognise the challenges some have applying for or sharing a rental flat and they have been reviewing and adjusting the Joint Singles Scheme in recent years, the MSF said in a statement in response to the street count.
For example, since December last year (2021), the HDB and MND started a pilot scheme where social service agencies match tenants with similar preferences and habits to share a flat. Under this pilot, singles can apply for a public rental flat by themselves, without having to find a flatmate first.
Flats under this pilot come with partitions installed
Applicants’ eligibility and rent are assessed individually.
The HDB and MND are assessing the effectiveness of this pilot project to see whether to scale it up over time, the statement said.
The MSF said there has been a steady and collective progress in whole-of-society efforts to reach out to and support rough sleepers, to help them off the streets and into shelters.
It cited the 57-member Partners Engaging and Empowering Rough Sleepers (Peers) Network, which comprises government agencies, religious groups and charities working together to ensure better coordination and synergy in the delivery of services to help the homeless.
The network’s partners have set up Safe Sound Sleeping Places. There are now about 20 such Places, which shelter about 100 homeless individuals. In addition, there are currently six transitional shelters serving families and about 270 individuals.
Since April 2020, over 680 homeless individuals who stayed at the various shelters have moved on to longer-term housing.
And since April this year, the MSF has been working with partners from the Peers Network and academic advisers to plan regular street counts. The first such coordinated street count will take place by the end of the year.
It said: “The street count will help us to collectively better understand the scale and geographical spread of rough sleeping in Singapore and render coordinated support to rough sleepers in need.”
Who were the homeless during the pandemic
Long-term homeless(those who were homeless before the pandemic)
Newly homeless(those who had not slept rough before the pandemic)
Transnational homeless(Singaporeans who live in Indonesia and Malaysia but travel to Singapore for work)
Sex
• More men than women
• Mix of men and women
• Almost all men
Age
• From 30s to 70s
• From 30s to 70s
• Mostly in their 50s
Family relationships
• Almost all divorced, separated or never married
• Having past conflict and estrangement, with many having lost contact with their family
• Almost all divorced, separated or never married
• Family relationships distant and strained, but connection remains
• Long-term drift and overseas travel
• Some had a spouse and young children in their adoptive countries whom they are still connected to
Work and finances
• Low-wage and insecure jobs
• Extreme poverty
• Low-wage and insecure jobs, with a few having had better paying jobs in the past
• Difficulty meeting basic needs
• Regular border crossings for low-wage and insecure jobs in Singapore
• A few did informal work outside Singapore
• Low income
Housing histories
• Lost matrimonial home or never purchased housing
• Encountered barriers in public rental system
• Episodes of low- cost market rentals
• Lost matrimonial home or never purchased housing
• Moved frequently to stay with family, friends
• In low-cost market rental units
• Lived in Malaysia or Indonesia
• Encountered difficulties obtaining public housing in Singapore for non-citizen family members
Rough sleeping
• From a few months to many years
• No more than a few days when displaced during the pandemic
• A mix of experiences, from rough sleeping to staying in homeless shelters
How they entered a shelter*
• Found by volunteers or field workers while rough sleeping during pandemic
• Some self-referrals
• Self-referrals when pandemic disrupted housing arrangements
• Most were stopped at immigration checkpoints and directed to a shelter after border closures**
*Homelessness counts usually include both rough sleepers (primary homelessness) and persons in homeless shelters (secondary homelessness).
**Those entering Singapore from Malaysia just before the borders were closed were identified as having no housing and referred for assistance so they could comply with Covid-19 rules on staying indoors
Table: STRAITS TIMES GRAPHICS Source: LEE KUAN YEW SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
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Events
Partnership with the Asia Philanthropy Circle: The pitch for social inclusivity
John Doe
By Genevieve Ding of APC
On 10 January 2019, the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC) convened a Singapore roundtable on the topic of ‘Inequality’. This time, to spur dialogue to action, APC, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Singapore (CFS), selected three intervention initiatives which aim to promote social inclusivity in Singapore, and organised a pitch session to invite member partnership and funding of these projects.
Members were presented with a proposed primary research to establish living income benchmark, an integrated programme supporting disadvantaged children and a collective impact model that addresses youth unemployment.
This event is a follow-up from a roundtable in 2018 exploring the state of inequality in Singapore, with Assoc. Prof Teo You Yenn from Nanyang Technological University, discussing the lessons from her bestselling book, ‘This is what Inequality Looks Like’. In the book, Assoc. Prof Teo eloquently gives voice to the realities of unequal life circumstances in Singapore. To further unveil the lived realities of Singaporeans at all levels of society, Assoc. Prof Teo, together with Asst. Prof Ng Kok Hoe from the National University of Singapore, presented their proposed study on the budgets that different types of household need for a basic standard of living in Singapore. Their study would inform a benchmark of how much people need in order to live adequately, which could guide the planning of welfare schemes in Singapore.
On the topic of inclusive education, Ms Ng Kar Yee from the People’s Association and Ms Wu Meiling from SHINE Children and Youth Services presented their holistic education model for children from disadvantaged families. In Singapore, education has high aspirations as a social leveller but stumbles in the face of an uneven playing field. The presenters highlight the lack of collaborative approach from organisations to provide holistic, integrated care for primary school children. The Integrated Care Programme that they have been running aims to create a child-centric ecosystem of care for at-risk children.
The pitch session ended with the presentation of a collective impact initiative – the Singapore Youth Impact Collective – to improve the work-readiness of disadvantaged young people through skills development and vocational training. Representing CFS, which has taken on the project as the backbone organisation, Ms Joyce Teo shared that youths at-risk make up approximately 17% of the total population in Singapore. Significantly, those in the low income brackets have the least educational pathways, and young people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds find it very challenging to find employment with promises of job stability and upward career progression.
In his concluding remarks, Mr Laurence Lien, APC CEO and CFS Chairman shared the sentiment behind hosting the pitch session at the Community Foundation of Singapore. The vision of CFS is for the community to take initiative and lead efficacious ground-up interventions. Mr Lien emphasised that a community of supporters sends a much stronger message for social intervention. He explained that while the exit strategy of most initiatives is for the government to adopt large-scale intervention, there is a need for philanthropists to first try new, innovative models and blaze paths not ventured by the government. Philanthropy needs to explore and show new ways of doing things.
Members who are interested to know more are encouraged to either approach the organisations directly or contact APC to coordinate further follow up: membership@asiaphilanthropycircle.org
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The competition was organised by City Harvest Community Services Association and received support from FUN! Fund, a Community Impact Fund jointly established by the Community Foundation of Singapore and the Agency for Integrated Care, with the aim of addressing social isolation among the elderly.
Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of National Development Mr Tan Kiat How attended the event. He encouraged the elderly to stay physically and mentally well, as well as urging them to participate in community activities and enjoy their golden years together.
The programme provides the children with a non-threatening platform to connect with peers and have positive conversations. In addition, it exposes them to different people who can assist to broaden their perspectives.
L.S., a volunteer with the Reading Odyssey programme @ Spooner Road
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Stories Of Impact
Migrants Emergency Assistance and Support (MEANS) Community Impact Fund – Helping migrant worker in need
John Doe
The MEANS (Migrants Emergency Assistance and Support) Community Impact Fund helps migrant workers who are legally employed in Singapore under R passes, work permits or special passes. It provides immediate and short-term financial assistance to disadvantaged migrant workers by covering:
Medical care to ill or injured workers who are abandoned, abused, under threat or under fed by their employers or whose medical care is not covered by their employers.
Shelter and basic necessities to injured workers or those seeking redress against unfair employment practices such as violence at work or contract violation.
Transport cost for workers who need to go to the various authorities (like Ministry of Manpower or the police) to resolve their cases regarding unfair employment practices as well as workers seeking employment while assisting in investigations.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit dolor
The competition was organised by City Harvest Community Services Association and received support from FUN! Fund, a Community Impact Fund jointly established by the Community Foundation of Singapore and the Agency for Integrated Care, with the aim of addressing social isolation among the elderly.
Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information & Ministry of National Development Mr Tan Kiat How attended the event. He encouraged the elderly to stay physically and mentally well, as well as urging them to participate in community activities and enjoy their golden years together.
The programme provides the children with a non-threatening platform to connect with peers and have positive conversations. In addition, it exposes them to different people who can assist to broaden their perspectives.
L.S., a volunteer with the Reading Odyssey programme @ Spooner Road
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News
Our CEO Catherine Loh is an honouree of Tatler Asia’s Most Influential 2022
John Doe
Our CEO Catherine Loh is named as one of Asia’s Most Influential 2022 by Tatler Asia – joining the ranks of innovators, industry leaders and trailblazers who are recognised for driving positive change in the region and beyond. Honourees of Tatler Asia’s flagship list have contributed to advancements in public service and governance, technology, education, finance, the arts, and other vital sectors.
Under Catherine’s leadership, CFS galvanises over $250 million from generous donors, manages more than 190 funds and supports 400 non-profit organisations across various causes. Guided by her vision that donors can make meaningful social investments through philanthropy, CFS has been embracing innovative models of giving that are not only impactful, but sustainable as well.
One such innovative model of giving is the Community Impact Fund, which enables philanthropy to tackle the most pressing social issues of our time. During the Covid-19 pandemic, CFS launched the Sayang Sayang Fund, a Community Impact Fund which raised over $10 million to support the emergency needs of various local communities. The Fund continues to give back to the community by providing emergency response to supporting ground-up initiatives and social organisations that create positive and long-term changes.
At CFS, we recognise that social needs and donor expectations are constantly evolving. In order to bring greater impact to communities in need, we have to become more innovative in the types of giving we offer while ensuring their sustainability and maintaining the trust the wider community has in us.
We want to thank the management and editorial team of Tatler Asia for the recognition.
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