SINGAPORE: At 17, Jemina (not her real name) packed her bags and left home.
After her father died and her mother remarried, the house no longer felt safe to her. There was often no food at home for her after school or during holidays, and she would stay in her room.
She moved into her junior college’s hostel, but left a few months before her A-level exams because her lease ran out after she repeated one year. By then, her mother and stepfather had made it clear to her that they did not want her back home after some conflict, she told The Straits Times.
Her nights were then spent in friends’ homes or in public areas.
The then teenager would carry her luggage with her during the day, spend time at playgrounds at night, or pull all-nighters at 24-hour fast-food chains.
When she turned 20 and was accepted into a university, she moved into a student dormitory. But due to eyesight issues and mental health concerns, she decided to withdraw from school to focus on recovery.
Jemina, who is now living with a family who opened their home to her, struggles to share her vulnerable past with anyone her age.
“Even adults at my school saw me as being difficult rather than as one who was suffering. Some teachers avoided me during the time I needed help the most. I was very alone,” the young woman told ST.
She said that her peers in the church and schools she attended grew up in privileged homes, and the extent of their problems was misunderstandings between friends.
“My struggles with being homeless were unheard of and uncomfortable to listen to. I isolated myself.”
Jemina is one of the young and homeless in Singapore.
Rough sleepers younger than 35 tend to be elusive and are not as easy to identify as the older ones because they do not sleep on the streets, said volunteers and social workers.
But the community groups and volunteers who help them say they have seen an increase in the number of young rough sleepers aged below 35.
Homeless Hearts of Singapore, whose members go out at night six times a week to befriend rough sleepers, told ST it has seen an increase in the number of young people who ask for help or support.
Up to end-October, almost half, or 49.5 per cent, of the 103 requests for help it received were from rough sleepers under the age of 35. This is a proportionate increase from 37 per cent in 2022.
