Building communities of care - an example from Cassia Crescent

The Cassia Resettlement Team (CRT) serves residents at Blk 52 Cassia Crescent, a majority of whom have been relocated from the rental flats in Dakota Crescent and Sims Drive.

Through weekly house visits and other initiatives such as potluck parties , CRT learns about and addresses the challenges these residents face.

As a ground-up response to the needs of the residents, we also seek to work collaboratively with various community partners, including formal social service organisations and government stakeholders.

Ultimately, while our members have different motivations to serve and bring about social change, CRT’s objectives are to walk the journey of life with residents and facilitate the growth of communities.

CRT had its roots in various ground-up initiatives that emerged in the rental housing estate of Dakota Crescent after its redevelopment was announced by the Housing and Development Board in 2014.

Those civic initiatives included IgnorLAND of its Loss, a community-engaged arts project by theatre company Drama Box; Dakota Adventures, which were tours of Dakota Crescent co-guided by residents and Between Two Homes, a documentary where residents shared their stories and relocation experiences on an interactive website.

These efforts resulted in the formation of a wide network of volunteers and participants, some of whom gradually coalesced to form CRT.

It shifted the narrative about Dakota Crescent from being just about heritage conservation to a concern for the lives of the members of the Dakota Crescent community and the challenges they faced before, during and after relocation. It is the residents’ needs, above all else, that are at the core of CRT’s focus.

It was only after the residents of Dakota Crescent relocated into Blk 52 that CRT was formally organised and when we began to realise the complexity of the challenges they faced.

They had difficulty adapting to a drastically different environment which was even more acutely felt as the relocation had disrupted their sources of formal and informal social support.

We were clear from the outset that CRT would not replace the role of traditional social service organisations, but instead, that we would act as intermediaries to help these formal agencies bridge the gaps that emerged in supporting the residents.

Yet we found ourselves, in many instances, also taking up direct responsibility of care for particularly vulnerable residents at Blk 52.

When we did that, we often found ourselves trying to balance between addressing a particular need and creating an unhealthy dependence on volunteers by the residents.

We were also keen to avoid taking over the type of duties and responsibilities that ought to have been provided by social service or public agencies, such as medical escorts to hospitals for the residents.

We would make an effort to highlight residents’ needs to such agencies so that they could take the appropriate action, unless it was particularly urgent. Our volunteers have also developed new projects for the community.  

One such programme is LIVE@52, consisting of small-scale activities that target residents from a few floors or of a specific demographic profile, such as children.

Twinkle Wishes is another example.

This project team provides end-of-life support to residents, increasing awareness and access to planning instruments such as Advanced Care Planning and the Lasting Power of Attorney.

This arose from the recognition that many residents who had end-of-life wishes did not know how to use these instruments to ensure that their wishes would eventually be honoured.

We are heartened to see that a strong sense of community has emerged among our volunteers.

TRANSFORMING CIVIC ACTION?

The collective action around Blk 52 has been transformative for each one of us, opening up conversations about a range of different challenges people face – from housing to ageing to healthcare.

It has led us to build collective knowledge around social issues that question and challenge existing narratives and policy approaches.  

It has helped us develop a sense of agency that tells us we can believe in our ability to care for others and advocate social change.

At the heart of our work is the time volunteers spend with residents during our visits and programmes, allowing both sides to build bonds.

What has emerged is a community of care that places each resident and the wider community of Blk 52 at the centre of it.

We believe that the future of civic action can be tied to building such communities of care across Singapore to foster greater social inclusion and solidarity.

In the course of our work at Blk 52, we have encountered many members of the public and government agencies who are supportive of our work. We have had individuals share valuable ideas, wisdom and the resources that we needed.

For instance there have been public servants who helpfully clarify government agencies’ perspectives and operating procedures with CRT, and connect us with the right person for different matters on behalf of the residents.

Such successes have often been contingent on a range of factors - personal relationships with individuals in different organisations; the goodwill of particular civil servants we came into contact with; and sometimes what seemed like sheer luck.

This is because ground-up initiatives, lacking legal recognition, tend not to have the same degree of legitimacy in the eyes of public agencies.

On first contact, there is often scepticism about our intentions and an aversion to sharing information that we think would facilitate better coordination in meeting the needs of residents.

This may not be sustainable for civic action in the long run as it creates both a high barrier to entry for civic actors, and a lack of certainty and predictability in engagement with the state.

To be sure, it takes time to build trust between existing public agencies and the social sector when the civic actor is new.

Perhaps what we need is a wider definition of legitimacy — that definition could take into account the record of the civic actors on the ground as well as the preferences of the community itself.

Making civic action sustainable also involves seeing such actors as equal partners in shaping the social space.

Equality can be fostered by allowing for an open and transparent exchange of information between the state and civic actors.

It should also come from recognising how the latter can be a valuable source of community knowledge and therefore a legitimate contributor to policy discussions.

Only with such honest and transparent engagement will civic actors feel confident enough to engage the state.

In an era where we see rising political and social divisions across the world, civic action points the way to a rebuilding of social solidarity and inclusion through action and change.

Civic action that has at its heart, the building of communities of care, offers citizens the full richness of being members of a social network and help them uncover the value of individuals’ experiences, needs, and diversity.

We hope that CRT’s work is a small contribution to imagining this better future.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Lim Jingzhou and Rocky Howe are volunteers at the Cassia Resettlement Team and co-editors of the upcoming book "They Told Us to Move: Dakota – Cassia". This is adapted from a piece which first appeared in the latest volume of Commentary, a journal from the National University of Singapore Society.