‘Homeless’ couple still in website’s spotlight.
The Online Citizen gives more details on their housing situation.
By Rachel Chang
A PROMINENT local website has taken up the gauntlet thrown down by a Cabinet minister over the issue of a homeless couple living in a tent.
On Tuesday, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan lambasted a short programme by Arabic TV news network Al-Jazeera in Parliament.
The two-minute clip features a couple allegedly forced onto the streets by government bureaucracy.
Dr Balakrishnan questioned the accuracy of the report, saying that the couple were not as destitute as the Al-Jazeera report alleged, nor had they been left in the lurch by government agencies.
He said the man had made about $220,000 from the sale of three HDB flats, and the woman is still the co-owner of an HDB flat with her ex-husband.
This made her and her present partner ineligible for public rental housing.
Dr Balakrishnan also berated ‘irresponsible websites’ for circulating the clip.
‘Now that the facts are out, let’s see whether these people who’ve been propagating falsehoods have the courage and honesty to set the facts right,’ he said, referring both to the TV station and the website.
The socio-political website The Online Citizen (TOC), which has carried a series of articles on the homeless camping out in parks, responded by approaching the couple. The website also revealed that it had been working with the couple since January to help find shelter for them.
The result was a lengthy two-part article on Wednesday and yesterday, which among other things gave details of the couple’s flat transactions. The article carried no byline.
Mr Andrew Loh, the website’s editor-in-chief, told The Straits Times yesterday that the article was a ‘team effort’ and that was why it carried no byline. He declined to provide more information about the couple or how they had come to know them.
The man was identified only by a fictitious name, Eddie, and the woman by her first name, Samiah.
After interviewing the couple, TOC provided its own approximation of how the sum of $220,000 might have been arrived at.
It said this was over a period of 20 years, and much of the profit from each sale went to paying off debts and loans.
Asked for its response to this information yesterday, Dr Balakrishnan’s press secretary Ho Moon Shin said ‘the profits made by selling the flats are a matter of record’.
TOC’s article on April 29 said it had spent ‘many hours’ with this couple ‘since January this year’.
‘We have approached various organisations, including MCYS, to try to help them find a home. We have done this in the belief that the Government would be able to assist the couple.’
Dr Balakrishnan said in Parliament on April 27 that the couple had been offered a place at a shelter run by New Hope Community Services, but they turned it down.
TOC said in its April 30 article that the shelter would not let the couple live together as they are not legally married.
In the meantime, MCYS also called into question Al-Jazeera’s journalistic tactics. It said that the woman had informed them that she ‘was not aware that Al-Jazeera had recorded her statement for the purpose of broadcasting’.
She had thought they were welfare volunteers.
‘If this is indeed the case, then Al-Jazeera… stands guilty of abusing the trust of the interviewee and unprofessional conduct.’
It also slammed as ‘illogical’ Al-Jazeera’s claim that its report was factually correct, and that the real point of it was to illustrate ‘how the safety net in Singapore sometimes fails to catch those who have fallen on hard times… because of the rules governing access to assistance’.
This is because the couple continue to receive financial and social assistance from various help outfits, for example the South West Community Development Council.
In fact, said MCYS, the episode ‘illustrates an accessible, flexible and responsive safety net for Singaporeans’.
‘Homelessness is a complex problem. It is not simply a matter of offering subsidies ad infinitum. The Government is committed to ensuring that every Singaporean has proper housing and will continue to provide appropriate assistance. Our approach is based on the time-tested values of hard work, thrift, self-reliance, family responsibility and community support for those in need,’ it added.
The Straits Times understands that both TOC and MCYS remain in contact with the couple.
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Dear myviewsareERECTED
The article mention paying off debts. I would like to know what debts are they? And why his brother, which he helped, didnt help them with accommodation.
200k to start a business is not lavish, however 200k w/o working to live a life is quite lavish. Together with his work, probably it would have netted him another 200k over 20 years. Thats almost 3K a month!
So without reserves and savings, he plunge all his money. its like gambling on the last bet, like you said – porkai lark, so it was ill management on their part.
I think the CDC gave them sums AFTER they finish spending all the money, on weddings and stuff. We ALL want to spend on our families, however we must budget and spend wisely. If everyone rushes out and buy a lamborgini and ferrari for their spouse and children, and expects the govt to feed them later, what would happen?
I think TOCs are also playing half truths, half facts and selective information.
There are 2 kinds of misfortune, one self-inflicted and preventable (like the case, if they had budgeted properly, saved for a rainy day, they wouldnt have suffered.), another kind is you are ALWAYS poor, has been and always will be, then these are genuine cases who never attempted to profit.
Imagine now this “Mr Eddie” had NOT try to profit on his house, by now he would had fully paid them off.
And for the lady, Stress related illness? Migraine? or plain lazy? Many of us suffer from these too, but we still work everyday.
I too hope TOC will pick up on the suggestion made by Incredulous. We dont need institutions that divide us. Wind up CDC, SInda and Mendaki.
I feels ‘helps’ from the gov ain’t genuine nowadays lor. My friend a Burmese-converted SG Citizen was asked to join People Associations & Grassroots organizations after received her citizenship.
She was reluctant then as she has a child to oversee intensively but joined out of favor as her MP had rendered her many helps which she must be faithful to PAP forever…
Of course, nothing is free but my skeptics is when SG’s New Citizens rose above 50% of total population soon, PAP will be most invisible because ‘they’ are most obliged to vote for PAP.
Sad lor. When a PAP Minister says YES, how can we say NO ???
Here you are arguing over a couple who had monetized their HDB flat to get by.
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If only some of you would channel this energy and scrutinize with the same level of passion, the government monetizing our votes. Why talk so much over a $220,000 sum of money a couple made over the course of 20 years?
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Shouldn’t we pursue with the same conviction to ask why this government is monetizing our trust in them by paying themselves in one month what this couple had reportedly earned in twenty years?
Go to this discussion. Interesting postings there!
“One year on, AWARE ‘reinvigorated’ since saga, says president”
What is the criteria used for censorship on this website? They censored reasonable comments but choose to post the kind of comments you see in that website. Go visit that and see mature discussion.
we are also homeless couple and the debts are sp,town counsil,hdb rental. when got o cdc they say sorry you are working we don’t help those who are working even if the salary is just $500 is still working. so cdc wait till you jobless and on the street then they will thrown in a bread for you to eat a voucher for you to buy one milk for your child for the whole year. come on cdc use brain. lky too use brain. balakrisnan please wash your dirty hand and help singaporeans from your heart rather then listen to master and abuse and accuse homeless singaporeans. we too have go to all gov sectors and what help we received??? if we talk out for sure they will find our fault and splash the whole dirt on us and say we are the cause of it not gov. then when would it be the cause of gov???