With assistant professor Tan Shin Bin (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore), we explore her latest journal article centred on Singapore’s Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) as an ethnic desegregation policy. She shares about ethnic and socio-economic segregation as they relate to the EIP, their inverse relationship for majority public housing subzones, and future areas for study. We also chat briefly about research data and methodology at the end.
“Seeking Shelter: Homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore” is the country’s second nationwide street count of its unhoused and homeless, conducted in 2021. With its authors Dr. Ng Kok Hoe and Jeyda Simren Sekhon Atac, we begin by reviewing the first street count and report in 2019. Thereafter, we dive deeper into their most recent report, to understand the state of homelessness during COVID-19, explore the role of social policy, and discuss volunteer engagement and ethical priorities.
So much ink has been spilled on Singapore’s healthcare and public health response to the ongoing pandemic. Yet, there will be an end to COVID-19, and the start of 2022 feels like a good time to shift some of the public focus to our country’s long-term, pandemic-linked social challenges. In this short episode, I summarise the most urgent and obvious problems – migrant, healthcare, and economically disadvantaged essential workers – before detailing four challenges which have received less attention: First, the harm to children, adolescents, and youths; second, compounded socio-economic inequality; third, social isolation; and fourth, ambiguous loss and unresolved grief.
In 2019, Dr. Ng Kok Hoe was part of two important studies in Singapore. First, he led the first nationwide street count of homelessness in the country, and second, he was part of the Minimum Income Standard or MIS study, which in a participatory manner determined the household budgets necessary to meet the basic needs of ordinary Singaporeans. Starting with a discussion of his research interests in housing and income insecurity, we hear more about these two studies and the bridging of research, practice, and policy with regard to social work and social service.
Although the journal article was ostensibly focused on Singaporean perceptions of the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) – and how this housing policy may influence the decisions of home-owners when choosing a flat – the ST article zoomed in on the preferences of home-owners to not live close to HDB public rental blocks (ST, Mar. 22). It cited the lead researcher, Associate Professor Leong Chan-Hoong of the Singapore University of Social Sciences, who concluded: “After price and location, proximity to public rental flats would be the variable that discourages a person from buying a unit”.
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