Commentary: Homeless shelters that feel like home can help keep people off the streets in Singapore

SINGAPORE: An older woman preparing to rest for the night at a brightly lit study area of a local university. An elderly man hunched over a hawker centre table, fast asleep in the middle of the night.
The idea of homelessness and rough sleeping seems at odds with Singapore’s image as a prosperous, orderly society. Yet, while not a common sight, there are several hundred homeless people in Singapore who sleep at park benches, void decks, stairwells, carparks and hawker centres.
The issue was brought to the fore during the pandemic, when street counts from 2019 to 2021 revealed about 1,000 people sleeping rough in Singapore.
Singapore’s rough sleeping population has since shrunk by about 40 per cent to 530 people, as of 2022. But this still means that for every 100,000 people in Singapore, about nine are sleeping rough.
The irony about the homelessness issue is that often it is not just about giving people a roof over their heads. Housing is a critical piece of the solution but tackling homelessness requires meeting complex physiological, emotional and social needs.
Singapore has taken several strides forward to tackle homelessness since the pandemic. Regular nationwide street counts of rough sleepers are now conducted to understand the extent and reasons behind rough sleeping.
The PEERS Network, a collaboration between community groups, social service agencies and government organisations, has been proactively befriending rough sleepers through night walks, to offer shelter and assistance.
The Housing and Development Board has also piloted new public rental housing typologies to better support singles, including rough sleepers, who face difficulty in finding co-tenants or living with others. The Joint Singles Scheme Operator-Run pilot allows for singles to apply for a rental flat without having to find a flatmate, while the Single Room Shared Facilities pilot provides tenants with greater privacy with their own bedrooms, alongside access to shared facilities to prevent social isolation. Such innovative mindset could also apply to Singapore’s homeless shelters.
Currently, homeless people here have access to two main shelter options: Safe Sound Sleeping Places (S3Ps), which are temporary or overnight shelters run by community or religious organisations, and the longer-term government-funded transitional shelters in one-room to three-room HDB flats or former public buildings.
According to an update from Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua in Parliament last month, about 60 per cent of the 720 beds available at Singapore’s seven transitional shelters were occupied yearly from 2021 to 2023. Individuals stay in a transitional shelter for an average of about nine months, he added.
Both S3Ps and transitional shelters are communal spaces that provide basic amenities and tend to be sparsely furnished. Conventional wisdom on homeless shelters argues that making the space too “homely” could hinder a person’s progress towards permanent housing.
This logic seems sound. A shelter is, after all, a transitional space and should make people want to move out and into more permanent housing. Such assumptions, however, lack evidence. Uncomfortable shelters do not necessarily provide the impetus for people to move on. Historically, in the United Kingdom, homeless people had chosen to remain in overcrowded shelters that were filthy, with poor sanitation because they had no other means of supporting themselves.
That said, recent research in the UK, United States, Denmark and the Netherlands suggest that physical spaces do matter to people living in shelters. Homeless shelters can either encourage or inhibit homeless people’s recovery and their ability to regain their autonomy.
Physical spaces affect people’s moods and behaviour. So shelters can influence how residents see themselves and the world around them. A cramped shelter with no privacy, sterile corridors, and bare-walled rooms is hardly inviting to anyone and reinforces the stigma around homelessness.
Incorporating warm lighting, plants and cozy colours into the shelter environment conveys the idea that “you deserve a place to call home”. This mindset can help the residents progress towards attaining stability.  
In 2023, CNA reported on a prototype room for migrant workers that was designed to feel like a home, suggesting that this could be the future for dormitories.
We extend the same idea to homeless shelters and suggest that designing innovative shelters that feel like home could help to keep people off the streets in Singapore. 
Shelter operators such as New Hope Community Services and Catholic Welfare Services are already embracing this shift.
For example, Transit Point @ Margaret Drive (TP@MD), recently underwent significant improvements, with careful consideration of colours to liven residents’ moods. Walls were removed to improve ventilation and accessibility, and designated spaces for drying clothes were also carved out so that residents were not enveloped in the smell of musty clothing when they sat in common areas. Gone, too, were the dingy toilets that would put anyone on edge.
Catholic Welfare Services also redesigned the Bethlehem shelter in 2023 based on insights gained from years of outreach work. Now, what greets residents in Bethlehem’s common area are furniture and items ubiquitous in a home – a glass dining table, a cozy couch corner, paintings on freshly painted walls, and rattan dividers to provide some privacy in shared bedrooms. 
It is without a doubt, homelessness comes with bouts of trauma and loss of dignity. So shelters for the homeless in Singapore need to provide a conducive environment for the residents to regain stability and make decisions that will help them progress in life.  
Beyond physical spaces, social innovations can empower and uplift homeless people, promoting dignity in their recovery and housing process.
The Institute of Policy Studies recently embarked on a research project with Catholic Welfare Services to study how decentralised decision-making can be implemented in homeless shelters. 
The project empowers residents to make joint decisions on house rules, shelter programmes and usage of shared facilities. By fostering greater autonomy and collaboration, shelters can prepare homeless people for the next phase of their lives in more permanent housing. Self-management also develops interpersonal and soft skills such as conflict resolution and effective communication.  
Similarly, as New Hope Community Services prepares to move one of its transitional shelters to a new site, residents were invited to share their hopes for the new shelter. This included the kind of furniture they would like to have. They could also vote on the look and feel of the rooms based on different designs, materials and colour schemes. Residents’ daily routines and priorities were discussed with the facilitators, so that the space could also incorporate designs to meet the residents’ practical needs.  
There are no simple solutions to homelessness. While it is not possible to eradicate homelessness altogether, designing innovative shelters to be more homely and to promote dignity can aid recovery.
To be sure, such shelters are not the answer to homelessness. Permanent housing is. But shelters can effectively facilitate the move onto permanent housing, and the physical and social innovations put forth in this commentary may just provide the solutions to encourage more rough sleepers off the streets.
Dr Harry Tan is a Research Fellow in the Policy Lab at the Institute of Policy Studies. Vanessa Lim is a Social Worker and Research Analyst at New Hope Community Services. Belle Phang is a Year 6 Student at ACS (Independent), who previously interned at the Institute of Policy Studies. Brian Monteiro is Manager for Shelters and Programs at Catholic Welfare Services.