SSR Seminar Series: Ending Long-term Homelessness in Singapore

People experiencing long-term homelessness in Singapore do not follow a single pathway. Some spend extended periods rough sleeping, while others move repeatedly through shelters and temporary accommodation. Drawing on a three-year qualitative study of long-term homelessness in Singapore, this seminar adopts a life course approach to reconstruct and analyse the life biography pathways of 41 participants through, into and out of homelessness, from childhood to old age.

Three key findings emerge. First, long-term homelessness broadly took two dominant forms: rough sleeping-dominant experiences and sheltered-homelessness-dominant experiences. Participants with sheltered-homelessness-dominant experiences tended to fare better in terms of their housing outcomes by the end of the study, as well as in the overall duration of time they spent homeless.

Second, the experience of long-term homelessness cuts across different life stages. Within each life stage, key life transitions associated with long-term homelessness were identified. In childhood, these included early school dropout, family instability, youth delinquency and childhood homelessness. In adulthood and older adulthood, marital union and separation, long-term work inactivity, irregular income, debt and bankruptcy, and multiple incarcerations constituted key life transitions shaping pathways into homelessness.

Third, homelessness in old age often represents the extension of long-standing patterns established earlier in the life course. These findings suggest that homelessness prevention is most effective when targeted earlier in the life course—particularly through interventions in adulthood or earlier—to prevent a downward spiral into long-term homelessness.