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[h=2]A student’s encounter with a homeless Singapore family[/h]Posted by temasektimes on July 14, 2012
Personally, I was really frustrated by the whole social structure of Singapore these days. The society was improving economically on the whole for the many rich and lucky idiots,who live blissfully in their own beautiful world, but leaving behind many of those helpless slowpokes, who had fallen way behind the society. I can’t seemed to recognise my own homeland Singapore anymore.
There have been many reports of Singaporeans especially with those towing with schooling children, has no home to stay, and though many have went to seek out help from their various MPs, all they have were disappointing replies and in the end ended up on news to ask the public for help. However, if the MPs were the ones hired by the countrymen to help the fellow citizens and those cant seem to get their job done , then whats the point of having MPs paid by taxpayers money. They might as well direct the taxpayers money to help the needy straight.
Now , as a student who has always been blinded by one side of the story , blinded by the lies of the society finally understand that there is no absolute good government and leaders. Worst of all, news these days appears to be selective,covering out all the true stories of the society these days.
Just yesterday, when returning home from school , I walk passed Bukit Panjang Ring Road Blk 431, I saw a homeless chinese family and the poor little girl was crying to her dad that she was hungry . That girl caught my attention and I came up to conversed with the girl and her father. The father’s tireless eyes blink desperately with tears , filling me his sad life story . His wife has abandoned the family and left him single handedly raising two kids, a primary school girl and a secondary school boy. He tried his best to work as a taxi driver and trying to make ends meet . However, he had no permanent house to stay in , and has to keep on moving into different rented rooms.
Rented rooms these days were very expensive and he could hardly make his ends meet by paying a monthly rent of $750 plus all the living and taxiexpenses .His children were always hungry and he has not much to feed his kids. As a greenhorn taxi driver , he was new thus he does not earned much from driving the taxi. Finally, he could no longer pay for the taxi rents and the room rent , so he was forced to live underblock.
Throughout the conversation I could sense that he has given up in living as he was given up by the society. I asked him why he did not approached the Bukit Panjang MP for help , and his reply was even more heart wrenching. As an uneducated middle aged man , approaching the grassroot leader for advice and help was the only option left and that is the duty of a politician , however all the reply he had to him was ” Just go live in streets lah , tell me also no use!!! Not just you homeless leh ! There are many homeless and i just an MP !! What can I do ! You go live on streets lor , think like that can threatened me!!!”
The middle-aged uncle has no idea what’s going on to the conversation that led to the bukitpanjang MP saying you dare threaten me , but clearly the conversation stated a point and the hopelessness of no sugested offer,advice or help. Sadly , my whole PAP bukit panjang grassroots leaders image was taurnished at the moment . Seriously , I believed this will not be the first and last incident of homeless and helpless singaporeans I would have encoutered. But , I feared for the safety for the little girl and the future for her brother. Both have been missing out from school for two weeks and surprisingly , the schools have not approached to do anything or provide some solutions for the two siblings. Anguish and helpless too, the only thing I could do at the moment was to passed them some money and wrote in here .
Hope there will be some kind souls out there or people whose jobs were to help those in such dired situations to provide a helping hand. An ITE student like me can only go this far to help . Hope the family will get better.
HELPLESS STUDENT
*The above was first posted as a comment on The Temasek Times.
http://www.tnp.sg/picture/electoral-division-2011-bukit-panjang
Personally, I was really frustrated by the whole social structure of Singapore these days. The society was improving economically on the whole for the many rich and lucky idiots,who live blissfully in their own beautiful world, but leaving behind many of those helpless slowpokes, who had fallen way behind the society. I can’t seemed to recognise my own homeland Singapore anymore.
There have been many reports of Singaporeans especially with those towing with schooling children, has no home to stay, and though many have went to seek out help from their various MPs, all they have were disappointing replies and in the end ended up on news to ask the public for help. However, if the MPs were the ones hired by the countrymen to help the fellow citizens and those cant seem to get their job done , then whats the point of having MPs paid by taxpayers money. They might as well direct the taxpayers money to help the needy straight.
Now , as a student who has always been blinded by one side of the story , blinded by the lies of the society finally understand that there is no absolute good government and leaders. Worst of all, news these days appears to be selective,covering out all the true stories of the society these days.
Just yesterday, when returning home from school , I walk passed Bukit Panjang Ring Road Blk 431, I saw a homeless chinese family and the poor little girl was crying to her dad that she was hungry . That girl caught my attention and I came up to conversed with the girl and her father. The father’s tireless eyes blink desperately with tears , filling me his sad life story . His wife has abandoned the family and left him single handedly raising two kids, a primary school girl and a secondary school boy. He tried his best to work as a taxi driver and trying to make ends meet . However, he had no permanent house to stay in , and has to keep on moving into different rented rooms.
Rented rooms these days were very expensive and he could hardly make his ends meet by paying a monthly rent of $750 plus all the living and taxiexpenses .His children were always hungry and he has not much to feed his kids. As a greenhorn taxi driver , he was new thus he does not earned much from driving the taxi. Finally, he could no longer pay for the taxi rents and the room rent , so he was forced to live underblock.
Throughout the conversation I could sense that he has given up in living as he was given up by the society. I asked him why he did not approached the Bukit Panjang MP for help , and his reply was even more heart wrenching. As an uneducated middle aged man , approaching the grassroot leader for advice and help was the only option left and that is the duty of a politician , however all the reply he had to him was ” Just go live in streets lah , tell me also no use!!! Not just you homeless leh ! There are many homeless and i just an MP !! What can I do ! You go live on streets lor , think like that can threatened me!!!”
The middle-aged uncle has no idea what’s going on to the conversation that led to the bukitpanjang MP saying you dare threaten me , but clearly the conversation stated a point and the hopelessness of no sugested offer,advice or help. Sadly , my whole PAP bukit panjang grassroots leaders image was taurnished at the moment . Seriously , I believed this will not be the first and last incident of homeless and helpless singaporeans I would have encoutered. But , I feared for the safety for the little girl and the future for her brother. Both have been missing out from school for two weeks and surprisingly , the schools have not approached to do anything or provide some solutions for the two siblings. Anguish and helpless too, the only thing I could do at the moment was to passed them some money and wrote in here .
Hope there will be some kind souls out there or people whose jobs were to help those in such dired situations to provide a helping hand. An ITE student like me can only go this far to help . Hope the family will get better.
HELPLESS STUDENT
*The above was first posted as a comment on The Temasek Times.
http://www.tnp.sg/picture/electoral-division-2011-bukit-panjang
