What is it about?
When an older person become homeless in Singapore, a country with cheap affordable public housing, whose fault is it? The government and newspapers in Singapore think that the problem lies with the individual whereas local bloggers and commentators on the internet blame the government for its rigid housing policies. This article shows why finding fault with the individual or the government is not helpful in understanding how older people become homeless in Singapore.
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Why is it important?
Our findings add new insights in the understanding of the pathways approach in the field of homelessness. We show that older people in our study did not become homeless from a specific pathway but encountered multiple pathways during their lives. They became homeless when the multiple pathways led to the weakening and subsequent loss of resources from the key social institutions that made up the social safety net in Singapore.
Perspectives
I had the great privilege of writing this article with my academic mentor, Helen Forbes-Mewett. It focuses on the becoming homeless dimension of a three-year ethnographic research on how older people become homeless, and experience and exit homelessness in Singapore. The publication of this article coincides with an emerging awareness in Singapore that homelessness is indeed a complex social issue. I hope that our findings help shed some light on this complex issue.
Harry Tan
Monash University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Whose ‘fault’ is it? Becoming homeless in Singapore, Urban Studies, December 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0042098017743723.
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