Rethinking Individual Vulnerability and Homelessness in Singapore

Abstract

At the turn of the twenty-first century, a “new orthodoxy” in explaining homelessness had emerged in the field of homeless research. Combining structural and individual factors, the consensus is that people with personal problems are more vulnerable than others to the structural conditions of becoming homeless.

Drawing on a three-year ethnographic study of older homeless people (aged 50 years and above) in Singapore, this chapter highlights three issues with this new orthodoxy. The first is the continued reliance on a strict dichotomy of structural and individual factors. This strict dichotomy does not reflect the realities in people’s lives. The “individual vulnerabilities” of older people in the study had structural dimensions that must be considered as well. The second is the framing of individual vulnerabilities as individual pathologies. This way of framing homelessness results in the assumption that there is something deficient with all people who are homeless that requires correction. Such a view is encapsulated in the compulsory institutionalisation and rehabilitation of rough sleepers in Singapore. The final and most fundamental issue is the problematic association of individual vulnerabilities with one’s heightened risk of becoming homeless. Older people in the study did not become homeless solely because they had more personal problems or issues than others. Rather, multiple pathways (or life events) that encompass both structural and individual factors weakened their ability to draw resources from work, family and friends and government assistance. Homelessness occurred when older people in the study ran out of all these three options.

Citation

Tan, H. (2019), "Rethinking Individual Vulnerability and Homelessness in Singapore", Forbes-Mewett, H. (Ed.) Vulnerability in a Mobile World, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-911-920191005