If you own an empty space – be it a basement, a closed business or a spare room or flat – would you please consider opening it up to host the homeless?

This was the urgent appeal put out by the Homeless Hearts of Singapore (HHOS), a non-profit organisation that cares for and befriends the homeless, in a Facebook post today (April 9).

According to the post, the latest Circuit Breaker measures have proven to be a “significant crisis” for the homeless and “a humanitarian crisis in the making”.

Not only are the homeless unable to mingle in their usual gathering and rough-sleeping places, many have also lost their jobs.

The post read: “Many of these people are not just elderly uncles, but young low-income women who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and injustice … We have heard that some low-income women (especially young foreign women) are even being pressured to perform sexual ‘favours’ for their male customers/bosses.

“There are also homeless youths and families with young babies in need.”

The organisation added that it has seen a “significant surge” of homeless people, both local and foreign, asking for help and shelter, as spaces in homeless shelters fill up quickly and capacities are reduced to comply with social distancing requirements.

Don’t be afraid to do what is good

The post called on anyone with an empty and available space to open it up to host the homeless during this period.

“We really need you to open up your empty churches, empty mosques, empty temples, your empty cafés and empty shops, your empty schools, your empty offices, your empty lounges and your empty flats.

“Friends, we need you. We need everyone to make space.”

While it may now be against the law to interact with people outside of your household, HHOS said a Safe Sound Sleeping Place (S3P), a term that refers to a place for the homeless to stay, is considered an essential service.

It added that it is working directly with the Ministry of Social and Family Development to vet and check each organisation, group or individual who volunteers a space, and will provide guidance on the necessary safety precautions.

“Do NOT be afraid to do what is good and right, friends. This is NOT the time to be afraid, but to look out for one another – especially the vulnerable. Remember, social distancing is a privilege, so let’s afford our homeless friends who have NO PLACE TO STAY AT HOME the same privilege,” it said.

Yio Chu Kang Chapel, which opened its premise to the homeless last November, has since converted its S3P into a 24-hour shelter. Previously, stayers were only allowed to use the place between 9pm and 7am.

Ps Rick Toh, lead pastor of the church, said: “What the authorities are trying to say to the public with current measures is: Don’t commute, stay home. We don’t want the homeless to move about in public places.

“In addition, most public places are closed and so the homeless without jobs will have no library or other places to hang around.”

The church has already reached its maximum capacity of 20, which is twice the number that it had originally planned to take in when it first set up the S3P.

Justice and love

In an interview with Salt&Light, co-founder of HHOS, Abraham Yeo, said that as many of us turn to fasting and prayer during this time, it is important to note that there is “a kind of fast that God has chosen“.

In response to His people’s questions on why He does not appear to be listening to them in Isaiah 58:3, God responds in Isaiah 58:6-8:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice 
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

“Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn way from your own flesh and blood?

“Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.”

Yeo said: “Fasting – by practising justice – is directly related to healing that God will bring.

“We need the healing of God right now.

“Physical healing, in the sense of healing from COVID-19, and also a healing of our land. The first thing we need to do is to turn back to God as the centre of our lives and of our society.”

He also urged believers to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, who “has great concern for the poor”, and look out for the needy in our communities and churches.

“Personally, I sense that this is a key moment in Singapore’s history – and especially for the church. Every 50th year, God called for a nationwide reset, of debts to be forgiven and slaves to be set free, lands to restored.

“It is a national demonstration of what grace can and does look like – not a mere abstract theological concept, but a foreshadowing of what His Kingdom can look like. It is a Jubilee of justice.

“Similarly, through this pandemic, God is also calling for a ‘nationwide reset’ where we are forced to examine what we trust in and the faulty systems that our lives are built on.”

Let us not be like the Pharisees, who were rule-followers on the outside but neglected things like justice and love that were important to God, he added.

“Will we speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves, and see that the poor and helpless get justice? (Proverbs 31: 8-9)

“Or will we, like the priest and Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan who passed the man attacked by robbers, turn a blind eye to our neighbour?”