“And there was no place for them in the inn…” Luke 2:7
In one week’s time it will be Christmas Day.
‘TWAS THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS…
My name is Abraham Yeo, and I’m the co-founder of Homeless Hearts of Singapore.
While this week has seen good news, such as this week’s news of HDB opening up a pilot programme for homeless individuals to be able to apply for public rental flats without having to first find a flatmate, the storm is still not over yet.
We have discovered that there is still a serious lack of safe AND affordable accommodations for homeless families during this Christmas season, until more shelter spaces and rental flats are available in late Jan / Feb 2022.
And we have news that some churches are actually closing their shelters by the end of this year to move back to “normal”. But would it be considered “normal” in the sight of a holy God to have church services and programmes that exclude the homeless and leaves them no room to come in and be at home?
Therefore, we specifically ask the churches in Singapore to open up their premises to help shelter at least one homeless family this season and beyond.
FIVE REASONS FAMILIES ARE BECOMING HOMELESS THIS CHRISTMAS
- Rents (both private and HDB) have been on the rise for 17 months consecutively since last year.
(Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/business/property/condo-hdb-rentals-rise-in-november-despite-tightened-omicron-border-rules, 15 Dec 2021)
In fact, a quick search on HDB’s own website shows rents for 2-room flats, out of three non-central locations (Jurong West, Tampines, and Woodlands) were mostly $1.3K to $1.7K per month as of 11 Dec 2021.
