Ravi Philemon / Writer
Peter faces difficult choices. Peter, who is a diabetic with a heart condition, barely makes enough money to pay the rent on the 3-Room HDB house that he is renting from a friend of his son, pay for transportation costs and to put food on the table for his family of five.
It is a constant struggle even though Peter works as an Administrative Assistant in Singapore Press Holdings and his wife works as an Administrative Assistant in a secondary school. Together, they bring home $1800 after CPF and loan deductions. Of this, they spend $1200 as rent, $400 for transportation costs and are left with a mere $200 to buy provisions and to put food on the table.
Peter often has to scrimp to pay for the medicine he has to take for his diabetic condition. The medicine costs about $250, but he can only deduct $150 from his Medisave account and has to pay the remaining $100 in cash. Peter has 3 children – a 22-year-old son doing his national service and two daughters aged 13 and 10 still in school.
His problems started in 2005, when he fractured his leg in a motorcycle accident. His employers of ten years had to retrench him. As he was not able to service the mortgage loan that he had taken from the bank, he had to sell his 5-Room flat at a loss of $18,000. As his household income is above $1500, he is not able to rent a flat from HDB. He did not have sufficient money to pay the cash over valuation (COV) to buy another flat from the open market. He went to seek help from his Member of Parliament (MP). After an appeal from his MP, HDB referred him to EM Services, which rented him a 3-Room flat at $1300 per month. It was later reduced to $850 on appeal by his MP.
This September, EM Services rejected his application to extend his tenancy after his contract with them expired. When he reached out to some social service agencies, he was advised that they could help by arranging for his children to stay in a shelter but Peter declined this ‘help’ as it would mean effectively breaking up his family. It was at this point that his son’s friend provided a temporary solution for his predicament.
“My son’s friend allowed me to rent his house for 3 months. It was very kind of him. But what will I do after the 3 months?” asks Peter. “The government should help Singaporeans like me. But nobody wants to hear my story”, he laments.
Peter’s story is but just one example of a new classification of the ‘needy’ in Singapore. Just like Peter, a substantial number of families in Singapore, with dual income are struggling to make ends meet. We are in the midst of a sociological change where a new class of poor is being created. Many families are in the workforce, many even with dual income; but most of it is based on short-term job contracts. These people are the emerging faces of the new poor in Singapore – a nation which was built on the belief that “if you work hard, you can make it”. But the ladder to a better life for some hardworking families seems to be getting harder to climb.
Sarah a 36 year old who works as an attendant in a home for the aged says, “The work is emotionally fulfilling. I feel like I am serving my parents who are not around anymore. But it is financially frustrating.” Her husband works as a taxi-driver and together they have a combined income of about $2300. Their HDB flat was repossessed by the banks for non-payment of loans, and now most of their income goes towards renting a 4-Room HDB flat. “I have 3 children and my husband’s parents stay with us, so we have to rent a bigger house. After paying $1800 for the rental of the house, I am left with very little for food and other necessities. And during festival seasons, it is even more pressing as my children expect us to buy new clothes and gifts like the other children,” she says, “I think I am a failure as a parent.”
The runaway prices of HDB flats have made home ownership out of reach for this “new poor”. Home prices have risen faster than wages for low-to-moderate-income families. While many jobs are still being created, the higher paying jobs are still out of reach for this “new poor” who often lack diplomas or degrees to qualify for such jobs. These people who work as administrative assistants, taxi-drivers, laboratory technicians, hawkers and teaching assistants, seem to be chasing an illusive Singapore Dream for a better life.
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About the author:
Ravi Philemon serves in a community services agency serving the homeless in Singapore. He recently returned from the United States, where he worked in a directorial position for a faith-based community outreach service, serving the homeless.
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44) oasis on October 15th, 2008 12.00 am
At some point in your life, you have to take responsibility for the choices you’ve made. That’s what being an adult means, that’s what being a citizen means. You failed to anticipate changes, you failed to prepare, and you made bad decisions. Like many Singaporeans, you deferred your better judgement to the experts, maybe because you were scared or didn’t know any better or didn’t bother to try. It happens to everyone, but that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.
well said! – - – now could you direct the same sentiments towards the government?
They have to be ‘adult’ enough to take responsibility, they have to play the part of being a citizen to help their fellow citizens . . . or do they view themselves as from another planet?
They have to take responsibility for:
1. current turmoil because we, the citizens exercised ‘our responsibility’ and voted for a ‘clean, competent, honest, trustworthy and reliable’ government but they have absolutely failed us – allowing the banks and financial institutions to tell lies right in front of their noses!. (you bet your last dollar we WILL take responsibility in the next GE; however, while we wait for that to come around, we still need to live in the here and now).
2. for the escape of Mas Selamat.
3. ignoring the basic needs of the same people who voted for them – never mind those who did not.
I get so tired repeating these I shall let the other posters add on to them.
Don’t preach responsibility when you cannot gaurantee certainty . . . not when the creme-of-the-crop (people arguably smarter than them in money matters) could bring down the world’s financial market . . .like it is now.
#47 hard-copy brochures
forget it . . . it’ll just be nice to look at (like all pap brochures) but without any substance when it comes to really helping the poor . . . in the end the bill for the printing of these brochures will be passed on to us . . . no thanks.
Hard Copy Brochures of Help Resources For the Poor (#48):
“BTW – the PAP Meet the People Session Was Efficient, Fast and Good. A Positive Experience I Will Never Forget.”
but is it efffective? will our MPs stand up for us and put our voices across in the parliament? or rather, they prefer to voice their own views, which they think their policies are good for us?
James Michael Parthi (#50):
a more effective solution will be to approach the social organizations, like NKF (since he has diabetic), and other welfare organizations for aid, since they have professionals who can advise them and help them tide through this difficult times. maybe you can try and look around for such contacts?
35) tiredsingaporean on October 14th, 2008 4.43 pm
I recommend you this article. Perhaps you may have read it already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
55) To tiredsingaporean on October 15th, 2008 10.45 am
wow! good link . . . thought it would be good to reproduce part of it here . . . .
In economics, rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to make money by manipulating the economic and/or legal environment rather than by trade and production of wealth. The term comes from the notion of economic rent, but in modern use of the term, rent seeking is more often associated with government regulation and misuse of governmental authority …….
Pleased to know that you find it useful.
I must credit my understanding to some poster somewhere in the Net quite a while back who commented on this ‘rent-seeking’ stuff in our context – the topic which I vaguely came across without paying much attention during my younger student days.
I thought it would be good to share it as it has much relevance in our case.
Although seeking the help of good samaritans would be useful, it does not solve the root of the problem.
Namely, the ridiculous increase in relative cost illustrated by MMSMPMMC.
Besides, if these people managed to obtain “good samaritan assistance”, the “powers that be” would have even less incentive to be helpful. (Not like they are of much help right now)
Why you people and TOC writers like to comment on social issues wan?
shhhh!!! keep quiet and don’t ever question lah.
we are unique remember?
don’t change things leh.
May there be zero protest and complains and questions to our ruling people from the past till eternity and remain unique. That is the educated way of thinking and truely 1st world.
Best is to have ZERO opposition and let there be only 1 party state.
Last but not least, ACCEPT ALL HIKES that CAME your way and ALL that will COME ( i think). Now, everyone, repeat after me : I , , shall accept any and all hikes whatever comes my way.
Say it! repeat this 10 minutes every evening just before you sleep, 10 mins the same just when you awake, and just 5 mins during your lunch break. You will feel better. Trust me ;)
“I , gemami , shall accept any and all hikes whatever comes my way” . . .there . . . have recited it for the past 10 minutes.
I am going to sleep now – wah! so refreshed! so peaceful!
great recipe, sw, – - – don’t know can wake up tomorow morning or not to do the 5 mins exercise !?
So is the article claiming that the middle class are the new poor in Singapore?
Why do we keeping bringing up the same ideas or suggestions when we know that not much can be done. Do what I’ve been doing , vote them the PAP out at your area and start at the next election. I think by then we will have very credible opposition.
Who raised the prices of HDB flats? Who is incharge, a PAP minister, vote him out and the rest of them! If we are vioceless now, we will have a bigger voice at the next election, collectively.
We can wait for Robert Ho to turn up and comment on that last comment…if only it was that easy to uproot the PAP! Then they wouldn’t be so arrogant in thinking that they can’t be moved!
A loud voice is useless if say ur watching TV and there’s a mute button.
I believe for the party calling itself “world class”, prove it – without dangling carrots that is. I’ve seen enough citizens being turned into asses (donkeys).
They can either:
1. prove themselves by looking lesser into their pockets and actually address the people’s concerns. For telling the people to solve their own problems is like stating the obvious, and I believe we need no such people, unless the general public lacks common sense.
2. be lucky that the next election a walkover – I’m sure everyone has seen this happen many times in history.
So will it be the blue or red pill?
Someone may wish to examine the Iron Triangle concept too.
i don’t think singaporeans can ever vote out the PAP in an election. Not when the rules are changed to their advantage always.
There are only two recouse for pissed off singaporeans … civil disobedience or migration.
Those who can afford will choose to migrate. Like me.
Those left behind will one day, out of no choice, choose civil disobedience to end it all.
Singaporeans keep saying the opposition is not up to mark. Ask yourself, what has the PAP done these two years that is “up to mark”?
I think that is only an excuse for the inertia. Singaporeans need to be fried up their assholes to really want to do something.
I predict it will probably take another 5-10 years to reach that level of misery to see something happening in Singapore.
It is also the time when most likely LKY will not be around. A headless bunch of PAPees with an unhapppy lot of peasants is a very potent mixture for chaos.
It is also why there are more singaporeans leaving … we don’t want to wait for that day to come.
i believe in collaboration. there must be collaboration among the opposition parties – independent candidates included.
the collaboration must be such that each oposition party specifically tackles one or two issues only.
do your homework, hold discussions with pro-pap supporters to get their opinions and use these information to prepare your counter approach.
each opposition to harp on the same topic they have undertaken throughout the duration of the rally period – best is to plan for complete coverage within 9 days – you’ll get no more than this for sure.
during the hustle and bustle of campaigning, ignore all accusations and threats of law suits – focus just on your attacks. if you are threatened with law suits, you’ll definitely get it no matter what! countering them will only add flame to the fire.
in every past ge, the pap was able to defend its position because the issues tackled by the opposition were too similar. This made it so easy for the pap to counter with its whole machinery and the opposition would then be cornered in no time.
this time the opposition must work to stretch the pap from all directions so that its machinery has to turn to all the directions the opposition is attacking from. When we are able to get all the ministers and their kachang putehs talking, then we might just be able to catch on some slips here and there.
private individuals supporting the opposition’s cause would do well to remember to book the speakers corner as soon as the ge is called. we can then chip in with our 5cents worth of opinions.
hoi Ravi,
two sad stories are not enough to justify any stand relating to the Singapore Dream lah. I know there a lot more sad stories.
I have my sad stories also you know.
But slowly and surely, struggles after struggles – there is still a Singapore Dream to wake up to.
If no dream, how dream can come true?
Do you know how many of these people who work as administrative assistants, taxi-drivers, laboratory technicians, hawkers and teaching assistants, etc owns HDB flats and are OK? You don’t. So your just two sad stories is not enough to hold water lah…even less to term it as the elusive Singapore Dream.
Gus, i totally disagree with your comments.
if you are only reading the article as a story or like you would a novel and being unfeeling to the characters therein – then, yes; what you say might just be true – that it is not enough to fight the case.
however, we are talking about real people with real lives to live through each day no matter what. every ONE suffering person in this world today is one too many. what more if it is a country with a 1st world economy.
gemami (#67):
very good point on collaboration.
i also believe in politician who are willing to serve its people, to take care of its people, each and every one of us, to listen to us, to understand us.
i dun quite agree on the point on ignoring accusations during campaign. currently, most of our oppositions are hot-headed. how can we expect them to represent us in the parliament when they get into lawsuit even before walking into the parliament?
if you look at the the pap politicians, i would say not many are good public speakers. but they are calm in interview and during campaign, choosing to answer questions that are in their favor and avoiding questions that may be detrimental to their policies. that’s politics, you must know when to say what’s right.
the point i’m trying to put across is, we need oppositions who are cool-headed, who can think carefully before they act. it’s not just about fighting their opponents just for the sake of fighting.
The thing about lawsuit is because the pap have a whole machinery at its beck and call to produce clips upon clips and from every angle on what each opposition speaker says or even how he conducts himself.
Remember Mohd Jufrie? even his goatee was a problem.
The opposition must do likewise, or at least channel some resources into doing the same. I am sure the PAP big guns would sit down after every rally to study, scrutinise and pick up any small details that can be used against the opposition and even to use them to direct the flow of traffic with intention to entrap them.
Likewise, the opposition must collaborate to unite their resources to do the same.
I am sure ministers like LSS could be cornered easily. See the other article where he describes LKY along the same line as Deng Xiao Ping. He is insinuating that LKY is communist. He even went into details on their similarities.
Another point i missed out earlier, the opposition must work around the msm. This is one of the biggest hurdle if not THE hurdle. It is here that the PAP speakers would correct the mistakes they make or slips of the tongues etc. during the heated campaign trail.
It’s a long road but the opposition must start to stategize otherwise it would be another futile attempt to win anything.
And the big losers will be – again – you and me.
gemami (#71):
agree. the opposition hasn’t been strategic in their campaign for election.
i wasn’t active in current affairs, not to say politics, so i’m ashamed not to understand the full length of your post, especially on Mohd Jufrie, the issue on msm. i’ll check them up some other times, or maybe you can give brief explanations…
hahas…
lost lost lost…
we singaporeans always have a great lost…
but NOT..ALL WILL CHANGE..
CHANGE…
HEHEHEHE…
totally sad about LKY le…
not effort made by him le…all the good ha made,has gone,,…
hai.
wake up./….
wake wake up up./..
The Tamil Poet and Social Activist Barathi said, “We will destroy this world if even one man does not have food” (paraphrased).
72) blade
briefly; it was the 1997 ge and SDP was then at the fore-front of opposition representation in parliament, having won 3 seats at the last ge.
1997 ge was then termed, the watershed ge where expectations were high and Singaporeans were gearing up to see a good fight.
The PAP, in order to place itself in an advantageous position, increased some of the GRC teams from 4 to 6 candidates in each team. The press and media were all geared up to entrap the opposition upon the instructions of the mighty rulers.
The ge got off to a slow start and feeling bored, LKY then created the first stir.
Fearing the fiery oratory delivery skills of Jufrie Mahmood at the previous night’s rally, he resorted to comment that he looked more like a gangster with his unkempt goatee.
Next morning, photos of JM was pasted all across the news mediums. That night, JM, at his rally, talked about the lack of issues from the PAP and because they had nothing better to do, they resorted to name-calling and making remarks that attacks the person. Somehow, JM made some reference to himself being a malay and that was IT . . . . ! ! !
It was the ‘slip’ the pap was looking for – - – “blasphemy!” they shouted!
The press followed the wind and its full machinery went into overdrive.
LKY then coined and branded JM a communalist!
Together with the press it became the election issue – nothing else mattered.
This is how it has been eversince . . . . .
one more thing I forgot to add:
JM was the part of the SDP’s team contesting Jalan Besar GRC. The others in the team were Low Yong Nguan, Gandhi Ambalavan and David Chew. If you have been following opposition politics and their politicians, you will understand that this is a group of people with fiercely superb oratory skills that could work up any crowd any where. Herein lies the danger.
In the opposing camp were the incumbents, headed by Lee Boon Yang and his team of relatively new and unheard of politicians.
Do you now get the picture why LKY and his whole machinery had to step in to lend LBY his hands?
If left alone, LBY would have been crushed and PAP’s GRC program would have collapsed and backfired. Oh, it must not happen – at ALL cost!
JM was later sued for defamation. His team-mates were not let off either – just for being there that night.
gamami (#75)
thank you for the brief intro
If the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in Singapore is a sign of things to come, then Singapore is really regressing, not progressing, as a nation. We are becoming a 3rd world nation in the society DNA.
In any case, it is not just the lower-income Singaporeans who are suffering at the hands of PAP. I mean, unless your family has got properties or a great business on the side, the get-a-degree-work-hard class of citizens are just as squeezed by the inflation. No doubt they, including yours truly, can downgrade their lifestyle – they can go from car to bus, from condo-aspirations to 3 room flats..but where does this stop? When does this endless downgrade in aspirations stop?
The majority of the citizens no longer benefit from the extra GDP dollars generated by our govt’s economic policies. For every extra dollar I get, I pay $2 more as a result. I much rather I earned $1k less and have $100,000 more in purchasing power or retirement money.
My parents were primary school educated, but as blue collar workers 20+ yrs ago, they had higher real (inflation adjusted) income than my wife and I.
In any case, if I didn’t know better, I might have listened to some old man’s recent nonsense on some farce-of-a-forum, saying this is an inevitable global phenomenon. I know cos I have Singaporean friends living outside of this little island nation, doing exactly what many of us would have wanted for a simple life – to be able to afford a home we are satisfied with, and not merely making do with a lousier smaller place that cost more than their original dream home – and be saving enough to look forward to a normal retirement at age 50+.
Again the old man said people shouldnt retire so young cos they will most probably “die” once they stop being active..heck…the ability to retire and the actual retiring are two separate issues. He knows cos he has the ability to.
Talk about putting yourselves in others’ shoes. Honorable leader? Yes, maybe 15yrs ago. Not anymore.
I have already stop chasing that Singapore dream. No car, no condos. Zilch.
All I want now is to get out of this bloody island.