Cerelia Lim / Reporter
This idea, along with a new mentoring programme for kids, were some of the things discussed at a workshop on urban poverty.
11 JUNE 2009 — A SEARCH engine to plug gaps in the current social assistance schemes was proposed at a forum for social change last week.
“The list of current assistance schemes is too thick and social workers have no time to peruse through the whole list to see which schemes the family qualifies for,” said Mrs Sally Sim, a senior social worker with Care Community Services Centre.
(Photo: Poverty Banquet – Forum Participants role played the different types of food each income group consumes for their daily meals. Courtesy of RCLF)
She also reflected during the panel discussion that as social workers, they want to spend more time counseling their clients and help in simplifying the process of finding suitable assistance schemes for their clients would be greatly appreciated.
The Raffles Community Leaders Forum, held this year from 8th to 11th June at Raffles Junior College, attracted more than 140 participants from various educational institutions.
As part of the forum, the Urban Poverty Special Interest Group (SIG) organized a panel discussion which hosted representatives from the different Voluntary Welfare Organizations and the North East Community Department Council.
The proposed idea of the search engine aims to reduce the amount of paperwork each social worker has to sieve through before finding a scheme that a recipient would qualify. Social workers will enter key qualification criteria’s of the recipient such as HDB flat size, income level, number of children and the search engine will sieve out the aid schemes that they qualify for.
Currently, aid schemes from the public sectors are listed on Community Development Council (CDC) homepages with minimal explanation. Hence, the proposed database will not only include relief schemes from the public sector but also schemes from voluntary welfare organizations and private enterprises.
However, Ms Patricia Wee, a senior social worker with the Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre felt that due to the fluid nature of the schemes, there will be a need for frequent updates and questioned the availability of manpower and financial resources to maintain the database.
“With the database in place, it serves to limit the resources rather than expand the creativity or motivation of social workers to actively source for other resources out there.” added Ms Wee.
Centre manager of New Hope Community Services, Mr Ravi Philemon, also commented that the database would not be feasible as the needs of an individual should not be determined by a computer program. He reiterated that the complexities with the various schemes lay in their overlapping criteria’s and its administration by different parties.
Mentoring programme for kids
The second idea proposed was the implementation of a mentoring program. Children from urban poverished families often face financial insecurities and a lack of motivation to improve one’s living standards. A lack of suitable figures of guidance further excebates the problem as they will not be able to make informed lifestyle choices.
The target group for this programme is children aged from nine to thirteen as this are the ages where they are most impressionable. The participants hope to implement this progamme over a period of six months to one year depending on the child’s progress and needs. They hope to start the pilot project with New Hope Community Services before evaluating the effectiveness’ of this programme.
When asked, Ms Wee agreed that mentoring program is something that youths today can do and it is realistic to implement.
There is no official poverty line in Singapore, but the national benchmark of ‘poor’ is a monthly gross total household income of $1500 and below. In 2001, the number of people requiring financial assistance was 14 300 and in 2003, the number rose to 31 570.
According to the Occasional Paper on Income Statistics – 2008, the Gini coefficient increased from 9.99 in 2000 to 12.90 in 2007.
The Gini Coefficient calculates the income distribution across the workforce and it is based on household income from work per household member. The more unequal the income distribution, the larger the Gini Coefficient.
Many still fall through the cracks
Despite the panelists agreeing that there are many more assistance schemes available now to help the urban poor, many are still left out.
Mr Ravi gave a personal example to the participants of his mother holding down three jobs to keep the family going while their relatives took care of him and his siblings. This scenario which was prevalent thirty to forty years ago is hardly observed in Singapore today as the family unit became more nuclear centered.
Said Ms Wee: “One loophole in the schemes is the unwed mothers. They do not qualify for baby bonus and other assistance schemes.”
Mrs Sim gave a case example of a 72 year old cleaner who did not qualify for any assistance even though he is in arrears with the Housing Development Board. This was because he is employed and has no medical problems. She further mentioned that this example shows that more flexibility and consideration needs to be exercised when implementing the criteria’s for social assistance schemes.
Singapore welfarism is such that once you are provened dead than the govt will start to cure you with slow antidote to keep you breath but not alive. If you are half dead or three-quarter dead, they said you are still alive thus no need cure and you need to help yourselves. When you argued to them that it is easier to cure a person while he is not quite dead, pap will tell you that it does not make business sense to do so. On the other hand, they will waste no effort to save a sick or dead foreign banks even if they were to burn down all the hospitals here.
Singapore welfarism is such that once you are provened dead than the govt will start to cure you with slow antidote to keep you breath but not alive. If you are half dead or three-quarter dead, they said you are still alive thus no need cure and you need to help yourselves. When you argued to them that it is easier to cure a person while he is not quite dead, pap will tell you that it does not make business sense to do so. On the other hand, they will waste no effort to save a sick or dead foreign banks even if they were to burn down all the hospitals here.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
The target group for this programme is children aged from nine to thirteen as this are the ages where they are most impressionable. … They hope to start the pilot project with New Hope Community Services before evaluating the effectiveness’ of this programme.
New Hope CS has several pastors as board members. Let’s hope it will not go down the slippery slope of unbridled evangelism on young impressionable minds from poor families a la our in-famous jailbirds Ong Kian Cheong and Dorothy Chan Hien from the Little Bride saga.
What a stupid idea. Newsflash ->> People who are poor probably cannot afford the internet access to go to this stupid site.
What’s next ? 10% discount for people under assistance schemes for Lexus cars?
Post-Aware Jittery@#2: Your fears are unfounded. New Hope Community Services (NHCS) works with the various self-help groups to assist the needy, including SINDA, MENDAKI and CDAC. The An-Nur Mosque is also a friend of NHCS and is often roped in to help the Muslim clients. Being a Christian VWO it is not strange to have pastors on the Board of Directors. But NHCS is committed to serve everyone regardless of race language or religion. If the slippery slope argument were to be bought quite a few VWOs in Singapore besides NHCS and including METTA Welfare Association, would have to be closed.
i think the search engine is a good idea.
and the best part, we don’t need to wait for the govt to do it. (better rely on ourselves than someone else to do it.)
alot of the schemes and qualifying criteria is public info.
so if anyone is interested, they can just take a weekend to do it
and it is done.
Unwed mothers are also mothers, the authorities should change the rules & let them have some benefits. You can always set a benchmark i.e. maximum salary to receive help is around SGD3000 or so?
Hey, im the guy in red :D . Regarding the #3 comment, why would they need to come to this site in the first place? Even if they cant go to this site doesn’t matter that they cant get assistance right?
haha yeap i think the search engine is meant for social workers. because they mentioned that currently the list of schemes is wayyy too long, as a result social workers always tap on the same few schemes, and many of the schemes that actually could assist the family go ignored.
so a database will allow the social worker to enter some details about the family they are assisting (eg family size, monthly income, etc) and get a narrowed-down list of schemes that the family qualifies for.
so yeah to clarify its meant for social workers not the underprivileged themselves.
and to those who comment that this is too mechanical, do note that the search engine does not determine exactly which scheme the family should apply for. it just narrows down the list of schemes, so the social worker has a far easier time. the “human touch” is certainly still present.
yeap (:
Hi Cerelia,
I’d like to point out a technical error in the report. Gini Coefficient should be between 0 and 1. 0 being perfect equality in income/wealth distribution and 1 being most unequal. Since the release of General Household Survey 2005 which stated the Gini coefficient for Singngapore as 0.52 across all households, more recent data seems to highlight only employed households. Gini Coefficient amongst employed household is 0.485 (2007) up from 0.472 (2006) before adjustment for ‘gifts’ such as progress package etc. Factoring only employed households in the calculation is problematic. The share of nation’s wealth cannot ignore unemployed households especially in a situation where the cause for unemployment is structural. However, in doing so, and further adjusting the figures to include handouts (which is not income by employment) the gini coefficient seems to be lower than if unemployed households are included. This is quite contradicting as on one hand DOS removed unemployed households as any income received would be from public assistance but then they adjusted the figures to include income from ‘non-employment’ goodies/handouts.
(Recalling from memory so I may not be very accurate), As a gauge, the best performing countries based on Gini Coefficient are Sweden and Denmark with gini coefficients hovering aroung 0.23-0.25 and Namibia being the worst at 0.71. Japan/Korea/China is aroung 0.33-0.35.
From the paper you cited, Gini Coefficient of employed households as published by DOS are:
2005 – 0.470 (0.459)
2006 – 0.476 (0.455)
2007 – 0.489 (0.479)
2008 – 0.481 (0.462)
(in bracket) denotes gini coefficient adjusted for ‘non-employment income’ handouts from state.
Perhaps, you’re making reference to gini index?
If the gini coefficient is lower when the unemployed households are factored in, it means that the income inequity is improved instead of worsen. Thus, with a lower income inequity, does it goes to show that the unemployed households have close or similar income than that of employed households? If so, then it goes to show that by helping the unemployed households to raise their income ( etc schemes ), they would be able to enjoy the same standard of living as the employed.
Thus, with the implementation of the search engine, it would reduce the time spent by social workers to obtain a scheme for the people in need and hence reduce the strain on government resources. More unemployed households would be able to achieve the same income level as the employed households and potentially being able to get out of the poverty cycle!
However, it could also place a greater strain on the government budget/resources since there is increasing expenditure from increasing schemes being implemented. There will be greater opportunity cost as well since the resources used may be diverted elsewhere etc education.
My personal opinion:
On the other hand, there may be other implications in doing so etc ( increasing competition within similar skill industries and thus lowering the income level and hence standard of living for employed . Moreover, with their increased purchasing power, they have the ability to demand for better good or necessities, leading to an inflation of the prices of goods. This leads to a fall in the real income of other consumers and hence they are able to enjoy lesser luxurious goods. This will reinforce their fall in standard of living too. Lastly, in bid to maintain their real income, people will try to ask for a wage raise and thus this leads to increase in wages. This would in turn deter investments/MNCs from setting up in SG which lowers the potential revenue in the future. )
Who is working on the database currently? Where can we help?