Couple with 8 children: "Brother, how can we work, we need to take care of our 8 children. Those useless goodnus with small lanjiaos who can have 0, 1 or 2 children should pay us money. We help Singapore to raise the birthrate you know. If Lily Neo is successful, she can get my family $4,000 free money every month. She is our hero! I love her!
Why should they bother to work. Let those educated, hardworking rich folks work and they will just leech from them. Life is so wonderful.
Said An-nafy: 'Life hasn't been so bad. It's not like we've had no food to eat, or no new clothes to wear.
'I don't feel there's been much change to my lifestyle at all.'
Family with 8 kids moved 12 times in 2 years, even staying at beaches and parks
HOPELESS?Broke parents won't find jobs, spending welfare money on cigarettes
They're penniless but won't work, living on any help they can get. We start the first of a four-part series on troubled families By Genevieve Jiang
WE MUST BE TOGETHER: Madam Juliana Saib (squatting with baby), her husband Mohamad Hider Abdul Kabis, 33 (second from right, standing), and their eight children have been moving from place to place for the past two years.
FOR the past two years, they have been living like nomads - in Singapore.
The family of 10 has lived with friends, relatives, in parks and on beaches. They wash in public toilets and live off charity.
They ended up in a shelter for homeless families in June this year. But barely three months later, they were back on the streets after breaking the shelter's rules.
Madam Juliana Saib, 32, her husband, Mr Mohamad Hider Abdul Kabis, 33, and their eight children aged between 16 and 1, live their lives one day at a time.
When they outlast their welcome, the hunt for their next place to stay begins yet again.
Said Madam Juliana: 'It's not been easy moving from place to place, but so long as the family is together, we'll survive.'
The couple have five sons, aged 16, 15, 12, 11, and 3, and three daughters, aged 9, 6 and 1.
Why have so many children when they have no home? Madam Juliana said it was 'God's will' and the children were 'a joy'.
She was so adamant that the family stay together that she rejected an offer earlier this year to house the children and her at a shelter, without her husband.
--TNP PICTURES: KELVIN CHNG
The couple also rejected several jobs recommended by social workers from various agencies, ranging from cleaning to delivery, citing reasons such as 'workplace too far', 'not suitable' or 'not convenient', said MrRavi Philemon, manager of the New Hope Shelter for Displaced Families.
The family's problems started when they decided to upgrade from a three-room flat in Bedok to a four-room flat in Serangoon in late 2005.
Mr Mohamad Hider was then taking home $1,600 as a warehouse assistant. When they bought their new flat in early 2006, they took a $32,000 bank loan.
Around the same time, Mr Mohamad Hider quit his job as he wasn't happy at his workplace.
He soon found another job, as a delivery man, but that brought in only half his previous salary - about $800 a month. Madam Juliana was not working then.
By August 2006, the couple found they could no longer pay their loan instalments.
They went to their Member of Parliament for help to get them another bank loan to downgrade to a three-room flat, but were advised not to do so.
Instead, they were asked to consider renting a flat or living with relatives until their income improved.
Their flat was repossessed by HDB, and they were then put on a waiting list for a rental flat.
The family moved in with Mr Mohamad Hider's 42-year-old brother at his three-room flat in Khatib.
Madam Juliana was then seven months pregnant with their eighth child, and that was where she recovered after giving birth in January last year, and where the family stayed until June. But staying under the same roof soon resulted in misunderstandings and arguments, which forced them to move.
It marked the start of the family's nomadic lifestyle. (See time chart on page 8.)
Mr Mohamad Hider had quit his delivery job in the middle of last year to 'help take care of the children'.
But in July, he started working as a cleaner, earning $700 a month.
Madam Juliana had, since Febuary last year, been working part-time as a cashier, earning about $850 a month.
In October, the family moved to East Coast Park, where they lived for a few days in a tent after outstaying their welcome at a friend's place.
It was then that social workers from the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports discovered them and referred them to the Singapore Children's Society's Yishun Family Service Centre (FSC).
They then moved again, to another relative's place, where they stayed for six months.
But a misunderstanding with the relative landed them back on the streets in May this year.
This time, they spent a night at a void deck in Yishun. The next day, they moved to Sembawang park.
Said Mr Mohamad Hider: 'The night we were thrown out, my 3-year-old boy was running a fever, and sleeping in the open was cold and uncomfortable.
'We had to give him some panadol. Luckily his fever went down.'
Mr Mohamad Hider again quit his job to 'take care of his family'.
In January this year, Madam Juliana, too, had left her cashier's job for the same reason.
The family spent three weeks at Sembawang park, living in a tent, and surviving on instant noodles boiled over a portable gas stove.
A social worker from Yishun FSC referred Madam Juliana to a shelter, where she could stay with her children. But she refused to go. She said: 'The shelter was only for women, so my husband would have to find his own way. I refused to accept because I didn't want the family to be separated.'
The family was told it was illegal to camp at the park indefinitely. So they moved again, to Changi beach, where they stayed for two weeks in June this year.
A social worker referred them to the New Hope Shelter on 20 Jun. They were housed in a three-room flat in Marsiling with two other homeless families.
But during their time there, they flouted the rules - which include not allowing visitors at the unit after 10pm.
When they moved to another unit in July, they continued to visit the tenants at their former unit without permission, though that too was against the rules.
They were warned by the home's staff seven times, and had to leave the shelter on 15 Sep.
They then moved in with their second son's classmate and his grandmother in Hougang, but were asked to leave late last month.
It is understood the couple are now staying temporarily at Changi beach with their youngest daughter, while the other children live with various relatives.
Both husband and wife are jobless and have no savings.
The family has, since earlier this year, been surviving on welfare.
They get $180 every month for four months from Muis, $60 worth of food vouchers a month for four months from a mosque, $590 a month for three months from the Northwest Community Development Council, $225 every month from the Straits Times Pocket Money Fund, and occasional food rations from the Yishun FSC and other welfare groups.
Despite not having a home, Madam Juliana made sure the family had new clothes to wear during Hari Raya in October.
She also spends on cigarettes.
The couple's 9-year-old daughter is deaf.
Their eldest, An-nafy Yusman, 16, stopped going to school and went to work at a fast food joint in May, earning $600 a month. But he returned to school in October, and is now staying with a friend.
Said An-nafy: 'Life hasn't been so bad. It's not like we've had no food to eat, or no new clothes to wear.
'I don't feel there's been much change to my lifestyle at all.'
