SINGAPORE – Rough sleepers will get more support to find stability in housing, jobs and rebuild ties with their families, with help from community partners as part of a broader push to tackle homelessness.
The 17 initiatives include a drop-in centre offering meals, showers and counselling, a programme matching single rough sleepers with compatible co-tenants to help them access public rental housing sooner, and micro-jobs and apprenticeships to gain work experience and become more financially stable.
Homeless youth will also get more support, including mentoring, family mediation, and vocational guidance. Another project will develop a tool to identify people at risk of homelessness so they can receive help earlier.
The projects are supported by the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s (MSF) Partnership to Tackle Homelessness (PATH) Fund, a $450,000 fund announced in January to help community organisations test solutions to the underlying causes of rough sleeping. The fund was launched in April.
The initiatives by organisations such as Bless Community Services and Hope Initiative Alliance were unveiled on Aug 19 at an appreciation event for community partners who support rough sleepers held at JEN Singapore Tanglin by Shangri-La.
MSF’s latest street count found that 496 people spent the night on Singapore’s streets in 2025, down 6 per cent from 530 in 2022.
The ministry set up the Partners Engaging and Empowering Rough Sleepers (PEERS) Network in 2019 to bring Government and community partners together to better support rough sleepers. It has since grown from 24 partners to more than 80.
Speaking at the appreciation event, Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration Desmond Lee said that while the network initially focused on befriending efforts, the next phase of the journey will look to broaden partnerships, expand outreach and support more ground-up innovation.
This involves working with more partners with complementary capabilities, he said. For instance, there are plans to extend non-profit Tzu Chi Foundation’s mobile medical outreach to shelter providers to make assistance more accessible to rough sleepers.
Outreach efforts will also be expanded, with social service offices working more closely with befriender groups to identify and engage rough sleepers earlier, Lee said.
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