In all, 900 spaces in 45 Safe Sound Sleeping Places were made available to rough sleepers during the Circuit Breaker, up from 100 spaces across seven shelters pre-COVID. Since April 2020, some 1,300 rough sleepers have benefited from Safe Sound Sleeping Places and over 400 have now moved on to more stable housing. The PEERS Network has also grown from 26 partners in 2019 to 57 partners to date.
Beyond providing shelter, the PEERS befrienders distributed care packs, hygiene kits and surgical masks. The MSF also worked with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to offer COVID-19 vaccination slots for rough sleepers through the befriending groups. This included registering their names in the system in advance, so they could immediately book an appointment once the slots were opened to their respective age groups.
Continuing To Support Persons With Disabilities
While this work was going on, MSF officers like Lynette Sim, who is an Assistant Director at SG Enable, and her team were working hard to support persons with disabilities.
Lynette explains that persons with disabilities “suffered a double whammy” during the Circuit Breaker. Disrupted routines and curtailed activities at school and adult disability centres led to severe adjustment issues and the regression of functional abilities.
The struggles for caregivers were also amplified, added Lynette. On top of additional caregiving duties, working and household chores, “they faced the challenge of keeping their children constantly engaged, accessing IT hardware to get onto Zoom lessons and managing tantrums due to disrupted routines”, she shared.
Certain groups had high needs that were too challenging for caregivers to manage at home on a prolonged basis. The disrupted engagement and lack of proper intervention also increased the likelihood of significant functional decline. Thus, Lynette and her team kept some disability facilities operating at a smaller capacity during the Circuit Breaker to offer caregivers respite, for those who still needed access to such services.
To better protect persons with disabilities, many of whom struggled with mask-wearing and safe distancing, the team worked with the MOH, the Health Promotion Board, healthcare providers and disability social service agencies to arrange for vaccinations to be done onsite at disability day activity centres, sheltered workshops and Disability homes by Mobile Vaccination Teams.