Homelessness | My Perspectives Lens
Tags: Projects, Homelessness, Singapore, Social Change, Initiative

The book was so well illustrated that I could paint a picture in my head, as if I’m experiencing the situation as a third-party. As I immerse myself into the book, a strong sensation of frustration, anger and hopelessness fills my heart to the brim.

To most of us, $12 for a meal, a gadget, a shirt or an accessory means nothing. But for some of our homeless folks living in poverty, even a dollar means everything. Reading the book as a third party, I realised how much each of our words can weigh and affect the other party.

#TakeAway 1: Everyone has Differing Needs and Preferences

Alongside as I spoke to people about issues like this, a friend mentioned a frustrating bit that I think we’ve all neglected: Many times we view smoking as a “bad” thing and believe that people (from the low-income) should quit smoking and not spend so much on cigarettes. Meanwhile, people with those comments are spending over a hundred dollars to fulfil their “self-care” needs, such as spa or atas hair treatments.

Not everyone is like this, but I’m just saying that there are people like that.

I personally see both ways as “a point of stress relief” — that both smoking and squandering money on hair treatments are methods for the different groups of people to feel better. I mean, even if everyone stops going for premium treatments, there’ll be less of such services, less employment etc etc etc and that’ll lead to another issue which I shall not dive deep for this particular reflection piece.

At this point I would also like to make a disclaimer that not all people who are homeless because of their financial situations. In fact, I recall a talk by someone who worked with the homeless, came to our school and said that people are homeless because they ‘don’t have good relationships with people”.

#TakeAway 2: Everyone has a different starting point in life

People with low-income backgrounds don’t choose to be poor, but they don’t have the choice to make a decision. Some say that they are ‘bad at financial planning’, but the truth is, how would they be able to save when they only have survival needs just enough to live?!

While we’re all living in this fast-paced world, busy running businesses and making profits, I urge you to take a pause and look behind you in this race.

Not everyone starts from the same starting point. Some are ahead, and some are way behind. Some have additional vitamin boosters, and some are falling behind because they’re injured along the way. You might think that you can’t help much just by yourself, then let me remind you that a little goes a long way!

Collectively we are all born with different interests and trained with different skills and capability. And there is so much that we can all do. All it takes is for one person to do something and the rest will follow. And that person could be you.

In doing a project related to homelessness, I’m also mindful that I’ll never be able to convince everyone I know to give a little more care for the people who are homeless, but I believe that there’s a reason why each of us are on this earth and planet, and my reason is to give while bringing people together.

I personally also find it a little ironic sometimes, that during our Nation’s Birthday each year, the song “Home” by Kit Chan would be the go-to song for many of us living in Singapore. Perhaps it’s time we rethink what “Home” means to us, if we still have people who are labeled as “Homeless” within what we call “home”.