Dr Ng Kok Hoe is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Social Inclusion Project and Case Study Unit at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests are public housing policy, homelessness, income security and minimum income standards.
In August this year, Dr Ng Kok Hoe from the Social Inclusion Project at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy published findings from a nationwide count of the number of homeless people sleeping on the streets and in temporary homeless shelters during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the second nationwide street count of homelessness in Singapore. The first, conducted by the same researcher, was in 2019. Before this research, homelessness was generally a hidden issue. Most people were not familiar with the issue.
Since 2019, public concern, media interest and policy attention have all grown. In this podcast, we will discuss with Dr Ng on how the research came about, what we have learnt and what we need to do next.
Susan Ng: Dr Ng, thank you very much for joining us today.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Thank you, happy to be here.
Susan Ng: Dr Ng, we want to talk about your study and the reasons behind conducting the study on homelessness.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: When we first began this work in 2017, that year, we did a limited pilot; we noticed that counting the number of homeless people is just part of regular data collection in many places, but not yet in Singapore. Part of it was just a curiosity to know. But, of course, homelessness is a very important area of research to social policy researchers and practitioners because homelessness is the most severe form of housing insecurity; to understand homelessness is to understand the needs of a vulnerable population. And we could envision that once we have done this research, the findings could potentially inform the planning of homelessness services, the development of housing policies and so on.
Susan Ng: So, I understand it coming in from the planning and policy point of view. But for the rest of us, why is it important for us to understand the issue?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: We often say that homelessness is a severe or the severest form of housing insecurity. Because housing insecurity exists on a continuum, before someone becomes homeless, they often go through several steps of increasing instability. They might be living with family and friends one week and then moving to sleep at the workplace the next, and so on, or relying on cheap hostels for a while until they can't afford it, and so on, before they finally end up on the streets. While rough sleeping may feel like a very out-of-the-ordinary housing condition, many more people experienced those lower gradations of housing insecurity. Our research on homelessness is at its heart, interested with why people don't have secure housing and what we can do about it and those issues concern all of us.
Susan Ng: This is a nationwide study, Dr Ng, and you have produced quite a comprehensive tally on the homeless population in Singapore. And you would have known, and as we all know, that the homeless population, It's quite a hidden one. Many of us don't get to see they are quite mobile as well, we may see them with one spot today, and then you go back there, and they aren't there anymore. So, in order for your study to be comprehensive and successful, talk to us about how this was done. Bearing in mind that you could go back to the same place three times, and all three times, you either see different people or everyone is missing.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: That is absolutely true. This was a very logistically challenging study to do. And it was made more difficult by the fact that there was no local precedent or such research at that point. We had to review international examples, learn from other people's practices, then develop our own method and process and then test it again. The 2017 pilot gave us a chance to tweak some of these data collection protocols and think about how we can adapt them to Singapore's context before our 2019 nationwide study. But the fundamental challenge remains, as you have mentioned, homeless people are a mobile population. And they don't present themselves to researchers. In fact, many of them are very careful to conceal themselves because of the social stigma of being homeless, as well as the risk of involuntary institutionalisation, which is still possible under the law. They have good reasons to keep themselves hidden from view. We had to recruit, and we recruited many volunteers, trained every one of them, and provide very clear definitions of who qualifies or doesn't qualify for what we consider to be homeless. We provide a very simple data collection form to use so that people can use it consistently. And then at the end of it, we had to check the data very carefully. In practice, it meant that our volunteer field workers were walking around for two hours at a time to cover about 50 residential blocks after 11 pm on foot. There was no other way to do it; there were no shortcuts, and they had to do it, this observational data collection on foot, there was what happened in the end.
Susan Ng: At the end of the day, it is not just the researchers; you are just using ordinary people. These are your volunteers, many of whom may or may not have come across the issue that we are talking about today. And there must have been challenges. Dr Ng, it is not as simple as giving people two forms and say, here go, right? Did they receive any prior training? What were the on-the-ground challenges that they had faced?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: We had to make sure that the instructions we gave them were the right ones. When we divided the map of Singapore into zones, eventually, it was almost 300 zones. There were some basic questions like how large a zone should be. So, I tested it out myself; I asked my research assistants, who are much taller than me and therefore walk faster. I asked them, I asked people with different legs to try our map to see what was the right size and what was a good time to do it; you can't do the observation too early because the people would not have been settling down for the night yet. But you don't not want to do it too late, because it will make it quite onerous on the volunteers. We tested all these things, the right time to do it, how large an area was, which places you don't have to visit, which places are critical not to miss, which tend to be hidden, where are the blind spots, we tested these things quite exhaustively. And then we train the volunteers. In 2019, when we did the first nationwide count, we also incorporated a survey. We took great care to recruit a team of social workers to help train the volunteer field workers in approaching homeless people on how to introduce themselves without sounding threatening or causing any anxiety because they are already very anxious. How to do it in a respectful way, and so on. So, we did roleplay before sending people out. It was quite a long process.
Susan Ng: Out of curiosity, were there people who refused to talk to your volunteers?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Oh, there were, and in testing out the survey form and instrument, we encountered it ourselves. We had to remind the volunteers if people reject you, don't take it personally. It is not you. It is just that if someone is sleeping in a public place, they are already very anxious. And the first thing they think of is, are you the police? Or are you someone from the authorities? They have so many questions in their mind. Rejections are quite common. We accept it as part of the research. But we also try to adjust our practices to minimise the chances of that. All the volunteers were instructed to introduce themselves with this first line: "I am not from the government; I am a volunteer from the National University of Singapore", which usually helps.
Susan Ng: Academic institutions would always help, especially when they hear it's a university; it's got to be good. We must talk about your survey and the results. This year's study was the second, it was nationwide, and it's a street count. Talk to us about the first and the second study, the comparisons between the two, and how the second one compared to the first.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: The results from the 2019 count were that, there were about 1000 homeless people. And that includes both people sleeping on the streets that we counted by eye, by observation. It also included residents in temporary homeless shelters; there was data we obtained from the shelters. In total, it was around 1000. Two years on, in the middle of a global pandemic that we know, threw all our lives into disarray, we did a count again, using a very similar method. The result? Not so different, still around 1000 In total, on the streets, plus in the shelters. But one thing had changed, which is the composition of this population. When we did the count in 2019, they were almost all on the streets, very few were in the shelters. But when we repeated the study in 2021, in the second year of the pandemic, 60 per cent of them were on the streets, 40 per cent were now in the shelters. So, the shelter population had increased more than six times, that was quite remarkable; that was the main change.
Susan Ng: But that was because could it be that they had no choice? Because of COVID-19?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Exactly. Many of them had sought shelter, which is not something to be taken for granted. So, kind of locating all those people, engaging them, persuading them to receive services, and so on. These are all the usual challenges of working with homeless people. But that was an extraordinary and exceptional time. At one point, especially during the circuit breaker, if you recall, none of us were allowed outside except to buy food, right? It was unlawful to be sleeping in public places. It was at the time that many of them approached the government and the shelter, asking for a place to sleep. And at the same time, the government had anticipated this surge in demand. So, they too worked with NGOs, private businesses, and so on, which had kind of idling premises because many businesses were not allowed to operate, as well as religious places of worship, churches, temples, mosques, and so on. So together, they increase the shelter capacity. So, both an increase in supply and demand, I think, contributed to the huge rise in the shelter population that year.
Susan Ng: I am just wondering, Dr Ng, how many of them actually remained in the shelters after the circuit breaker? Do you know?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: The numbers did subside, but slowly, which means the shelter population did not vanish. I mentioned earlier that during the circuit breaker was the peak of the demand; there was also the peak of shelter capacity because once the circuit breaker ended, those places of worship re-opened, and they will need the space back. Yes, shelter capacity also shrunk. So, some people moved out, some into more stable housing; we have heard that some went back onto the streets. But a sizable number remain in the shelter system, which reminds us of how long it takes to sort out stable housing arrangements for people to transition into.
Susan Ng: Okay, so taking everything you have just said, comparing it to the results of the survey. What have you learnt about the entire state of homelessness or rough sleeping in Singapore? You have talked about some of the changes that have been since before and after COVID-19. Let's talk about the differences and the causes.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: When doing observation, there's a limit to how much data we can collect. It tells us the distribution, the prevalence and the general profile of homeless people. And there was useful information, and we noticed that, in fact, the geographical distribution of homelessness in Singapore remains quite stable, notwithstanding a global pandemic. So, they were still found in most districts across Singapore. More of them were in older and poorer neighbourhoods; the typical profile is an older Chinese man; those things remain unchanged. But through observation, we don't get to understand and hear people's experiences and don't get to develop an understanding of what led them to that situation.
So, in this year's study, we also incorporated in-depth interviews, these are fairly long, an hour to an hour and a half interviews with residents in a homeless shelter who entered those shelters during the pandemic. And from what they told us, and this is consistent with international research, we know there are three main causes of homelessness. The first is social; there is often a complete breakdown in family relationships before someone becomes homeless. And in Singapore, because our housing system explicitly prioritises and caters for family units, so often, to leave the families is to lose housing. So, when that happens, and the degree of kind of the decay of the relationship is often so severe that they say even in a pandemic, there's no way they can go home.it can't be reversed. So that is the first cause is social, and the second cause is economic. Sometimes people have the stereotype that homeless people don't do any work, they collect cardboard right for recycling, and so on. That's not true, from our research, we have learned that many of them are in work, but they are in low-paying work. These are the jobs that have been associated with low wages for a long time in Singapore, cleaning, security, and so on. And on those wages, it's very difficult to sustain the costs of open market rentals once you have to leave the family home.
So, poverty and low-wage work is the second key driver. The third one is related to what I just said, it has got to do with lacking access to adequate housing options. I have just mentioned open market rentals are often unaffordable on low wages, and people often try to live with family and friends. But you realise that goodwill gets used up, and then they get asked to leave. So, it is not a long-term solution. They often end up trying for public rental housing within the HDB system. This is not an easy housing option to get into, it's in short supply, and the criteria are strict. And also, the conditions are quite difficult. So quite a number of homeless people we have spoken to have past experiences of living in public rental housing, which currently requires two single tenants to share a studio flat with no bedrooms. So that often leads to conflict, and people concluding that they are better off sleeping outside, so the lack of housing options is the third major factor.
Susan Ng: I am actually quite keen to talk about something that is related to homelessness, I mean, the social impact, the physical, the employment opportunities even, all of this will actually impact other areas in our lives. And we have been talking about this quite a lot, actually, especially over the last three years of COVID-19. Mental well-being and mental health issues that is very important. Emotional issues, the need to be able to support the homeless in these areas. But I know it is very difficult to do that, how do you actually get them to be plugged into the system?
You have studied this for quite some time now. Dr Ng, how do you think we can plug this gap? Because mental health is not something to laugh about anymore. Everything you have spoken about leads to the fact that someone would be suffering mentally.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: That's absolutely true. The conditions of homelessness are very, very harsh. So sometimes when people suggest that it might be a lifestyle choice. People like the freedom of sleeping outdoors and so on. I would say that if you look at the conditions in which homeless people sleep, you wouldn't say that. It is clearly not a choice. The mental stress is quite unimaginable. So, in our interviews, people talk about how it is very difficult to get even a single night's sleep, without disturbance. People say they wake after an hour, after two hours, because there are pests depending on where they sleep. Cockroaches and rats. They say they worry about people playing pranks on them or trying to steal from them by cutting their bags and their pockets. People worry about where to find a toilet if they wake up in the middle of the night and need of access to one. The next morning, they worry about where to wash, where to freshen up. And you mentioned employment as well. And if you can't find a place to freshen up and keep yourself looking presentable, how do you get a job? And some of the toughest interviews we had to listen to were with homeless women.
So, all the difficulties that I have just talked about, imagine that for women, it's just harder, everything is harder. I don't talk about this often, but some of the homeless men tell us that they sometimes carry an empty plastic bottle with them for the night, just in case they can't find a toilet. But a woman can't do that. So, you are right. It is also a mental health issue, when can one get a good night's sleep and if this goes on for weeks, and in some cases, years. What does that do to our health? to our persons? So, the gap is huge. I think there is a lot more we can do as a society, I hope that as we develop greater awareness that homelessness is related to very complex factors to do with people's social relationships but also to economic hardship, and the lack of housing services, we can be more understanding and be more respectful of the people who are homeless in our communities.
Because that itself is a barrier, they tell us that sometimes residents make a complaint when they spot homeless people in the void deck for no other reason than they feel unsafe, because somebody is sleeping in a void deck and if one makes the complaint, the police will have to respond, and the response is to ask them to move away. So, they moved to another void deck, nothing is achieved. I hope that people can learn to be more understanding towards this group, and know that they are just people going through a hard time. In terms of services, we can still do a lot more to expand our outreach and shelter services. And of course, as a researcher in a public policy school, I'm always interested in policy. In this case, I'm interested in how housing policy can be improved to provide accessible and adequate options for homeless people.
Susan Ng: A few things popped into my head as you were talking, especially the last point you made about people reporting if they see someone who could be rough sleeping in their neighbourhood. I thought about inclusion; very often we talk about having an inclusive society, maybe this doesn't quite fit the bill. But if we were talking about inclusion and bringing everyone that lives in Singapore, that is a son or daughter of Singapore, into the fold. Should we not also spare a thought for those who are homeless? Sometimes out of reasons that they cannot control. It's not a matter of people saying it's a lifestyle choice. I mean, you know, if you had a choice, would you choose that lifestyle, and there are those who may or may have been incarcerated, who may have been released, and who aren't able to find themselves back to their own homes. So just a quick word on this about how we can actually do this as a society? How can we make it work for us and for them and share space?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Sharing spaces is at the heart of this. When I speak about homelessness, when I give public talks, often young people will come up afterwards to talk to me and show how concerned they are. And they make this observation which we have also spotted while doing our street counts. Of defensive architecture. I am talking about features on street furniture and benches, seating areas, in void decks and so on. Where we sometimes attach an armrest or we fix little bumps on it, just so that someone can't lie down for a bit of rest. And young people asked me, what can we do about it?
And I say, well, let the people who decided to install these features know that as a resident in that community, the spirit of doing these things does not represent the values that you identify with. Let them know you are not proud of being a resident of an estate that looks like this. Sometimes, I also hear this kind of very disingenuous argument that if you remove defensive architecture, you are encouraging people to be homeless. It really doesn't work that way. We have talked about the causes of homelessness, Yes, having benches with no armrests is not a cause of homelessness. But it may mean that someone who is homeless at least gets a bit of a rest.
Susan Ng: I guess there are many arguments to exactly what you just said. The good, bad, and ugly. But the other thing I wanted to pick up on was what you said about men versus women. I know majority of the homeless and the rough sleepers are men; out of the 1000 that we have are men, but there are women as well. Have you found in your studies, even in the past, that the reasons are the same? Or maybe the reasons are the same, and yet different?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Women form about just 10 per cent. I say not to suggest that there should be more, but they form a small minority of the street homeless population. But quite a number among those that we interviewed in this year study. This was in fact, one of the questions I have been very keen to answer ever since we started this research, because people ask me, why are there so few women on the streets? Are the experiences the same? What we have learnt from this year's study that their experience is harsher. I stress this homelessness is difficult for anyone, but for women is especially difficult, for all those reasons that that I have mentioned, just everything becomes harder, because safety concerns, by and large for women, the need for privacy is of course greater importance to women, and men generally feel they can fend for themselves, and so on, it is not the case for women.
Their experiences are generally much harder, as for why there are not more of them on the streets. I had heard a very kind of poetic explanation for this, I read an interview in the papers with a shelter operator, when he was asked. His answer was maybe people love their mothers more. I thought that was very poetic, and I think there might be some clues in that, in the sense that women are less likely to be kicked out of the family home, precisely because people instinctively appreciate the dangers of living on the streets. So maybe, when there is a huge argument in the home, fathers are more likely to be kicked out., but there is only one dimension of it. What we found, the key lesson that we learnt, in fact from this year's study is that women are more likely to experience hidden homelessness, by which we mean they are living temporarily off the goodwill of relatives, extended family, friends and so on. Because they cannot take the risks of sleeping rough, they are moving around, their living condition is extremely unstable. There is no security; there is no peace in that. But they are still sheltered. And often, their pathways into street homelessness is a much longer one.
Susan Ng: Could it also be, Dr Ng, that women are more likely to seek help? if you see a woman on the street, so personally, perhaps I would approach a woman first before I approach a man for obvious reasons. And it could be the same. So, women, maybe they are more likely to seek help. They are also more likely to receive help. And some of these women also have children. And if you do, you are not likely to want to take your children unless the situation is so dire that you must take your children with you. Could that be one of the reasons?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Yes. A few of the female residents in a shelter that we interviewed said exactly this. So, during COVID-19, Some of them were turned out off by friends or relatives for various reasons. But they couldn't go on to the streets. And they have never slept outside before. They immediately sought help from government agencies. So, there was not process where they ended up on the streets, and then were picked up by public agencies. They went directly when they ran out of options. They went directly to public agencies when we asked them why. I remembered one of the answers. She said, "I'm a woman. Of course, I can't sleep outside." The idea exactly that I must seek help because I just cannot contemplate doing this. Absolutely right.
Susan Ng: Volunteers, you had a fear of not being able to find enough volunteers. But you found in both cases, both studies, that you perhaps had more than you needed. Could this be a sign of society number one, waking up to the issue that we do have homelessness in Singapore and that they feel they must contribute even if it is first to a research piece, and then hopefully doing something else after that.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: The volunteers are amazing. They are one of the most rewarding aspects of doing this study. As you mentioned, we were quite anxious when we first did a nationwide count, we like to say Singapore is a small country. But it is not that small, you need to be everywhere on one night, not that small at all. We needed hundreds of volunteers. When we did the first nationwide study in 2019, we ended up recruiting more than 480 volunteers. And we were so worried that if people didn't sign up, we'll have to end up doing everything ourselves. By ourselves, I meant a team of three people, it was me and two research assistants.
This study was only possible because of volunteers. They have been big hearted, they have been generous, they have been patient with us during the training, and some of the most memorable conversations I have had during this process was with the volunteers. We asked them to collect data only, but some of them write to me after that, to share their experiences. They say things like I have been living in this neighbourhood for years. But I had never known that there are homeless people here. It makes me look at my neighbourhood differently. One other person said this, I still remember, she said, we are such a wealthy society. We shouldn't need to have people sleeping outside. This is not right. I wouldn't be surprised, if many of these volunteers in our research project, went on to volunteer with outreach groups.
Susan Ng: And you are likely right. Many of them would perhaps want to do something and find groups to do that with. I must ask you about the young people, your volunteer group would be quite a wide range of people. Over different demographics. You also had young people in the volunteer group. But in a separate conversation we had, you also mentioned that young people in schools are also quite keen on this subject. Talk to us a bit about that, why the interest in this particular topic, why they want to be involved in this topic, bodes well and is good for Singapore?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: When we first started this research, we had to do a lot, we had to work very hard to get the word out there that this was an important issue, we need to be concerned, we need to think about how to do better, as a society. A few years on from now, one of the signs that I think, is word is now out there and circulating in our community, when young people, students, write to me to say that they have to do a school project they have picked homelessness as that topic, and I love this, I love that they are so interested in social issues, that they are so concerned I have had students writing to me from secondary schools, from ITEs, from the polytechnics and the universities, they say they worry about this, they are upset, they want to do something about it. They want to make things better. As far as possible, I try to make time for them to have conversations.
And in the last two years, we have been working with a polytechnic to design their final year project, where their task is to redesign void decks so that it is more accommodating to a wide range of people in our community, and I am so pleased that it is something that young people have taken to their hearts, and they want to take ownership of this issue. I have always believed that if young people in any society are moved to do something about an issue, then surely there is hope.
Susan Ng: I always believe there is hope, I also agree with you that when young people take an interest in some of these topics, which we feel might be better suited to adults, policymakers, researchers like yourself, and people who run the various charities and shelters. But when young people actually even show a little bit of interest. There is hope. If I may ask you, from your dealings with especially, secondary school students, and they have done the research project or in the process of doing it, what insights have you heard from them? What are some of the whispers you might have heard from these young kids?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: When young people do these projects, sometimes they are quite ambitious. They say they want to interview homeless people and do a survey and so on. We have to cautiously advise them to set realistic expectations, because like I mentioned, we had to work very hard just to locate homeless people for the count. And then we also talked about how the rejection rate is quite high, it is not easy to engage homeless people, to earn their trust and have them be in a conversation with you for data collection. These are difficult. What young people can do is sometimes they do projects where they kind of audit the physical environment in the void deck and think about how that is hospitable or not to homeless people. They try to read about various innovative shelter designs in other countries, and then they think about whether that can be applied to Singapore or not. A lot of the projects are like this, they are taking information that is out there, and then they try to apply it, they critique it and then they synthesise it. I think for what they are doing for a classroom assignment, is already amazing.
Susan Ng: It is brilliant. It is so different from when I was in school, when you're asked to do a project, you wouldn't go down this path, you would always take the path that is easy. But I am glad they are not taking that path that is easy, because this is a very difficult topic to talk about. And some of them would have difficulty even speaking to the elder members of their family about this issue. because as you said, right at the beginning, it is quite a hidden issue, the homeless are mobile. In all the research, you have done, the various surveys in the work that you have done in this area, what has been the deepest impression on you from this study, and others?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Having research on various dimensions of Social Exclusion now for some years. It is doing this work is still hard. It has been interesting but also tiring. It has been sometimes aggravating but also very inspiring. Just to imagine the kind of hardships people have had to endure, for years sometimes at a stretch, sleeping outside, they show great resourcefulness, resilience just to get by. It is really very, very hard to imagine. The lesson I take away is that we should not underestimate the hardships of people facing various forms of disadvantage. We should take very seriously various barriers that they still face in our society. And I think that should move and inspire us to find every way possible to do things better.
Susan Ng: Dr Ng, you have got all the numbers now, you have got all the insights, you have got all the knowledge, hindsight, foresight, everything. I want to ask you, though, if you had your wishes, your hopes, and perhaps a crystal ball to peer into the future, what would you like to see? What do you wish for in order to change the landscape, even just by a little bit?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: If I had one wish, and that is of course, too few. But if to have one. My biggest wish would be that we need to change the way we think and talk about housing. We have achieved so much in housing as a nation and as a society. It is no mean feat to house 80 per cent of the population in a public housing system. There is no equal out there internationally, so that is remarkable. It also boggles the mind that we struggle to crack this problem of homelessness which currently stands at a total number of 1000. It is but a small, tiny fraction of our public housing system, I think to really get to the root of homelessness, and to make sure there are better housing options out there for people who are not just currently homeless, but homeless people in the future. We need to refocus our attention on housing needs. I think for many years now, we have gotten used to designing housing policy to promote home ownership. Because that of course has its strengths, but we for too long sought to differentiate people in terms of responsible homeowner versus non-homeowner or irresponsible homeowner and so on. We are losing focus that the first responsibility of any public housing system is to attend to people's housing needs. If we can do that, reoriented ourselves when assessing people's eligibility for public rental housing and other shelter services, to focus on the extent of housing needs. then I think the problem of homelessness will become much more straightforward to tackle.
Susan Ng: Any final thoughts, Dr Ng before we wrap our conversation?
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Doing this research, I think in the last few years, and then looking at how the ecosystem around the topic of homelessness has changed alongside the progress in research. I am talking about this huge rise in public interest, in media attention, but also, policymaker's attention to the issue of homelessness. I think it reassures me of the importance of independent, rigorous social research that seeks out issues that are still just emerging or that are hidden, producing evidence that can subsequently help in advancing public policy making. I am reassured that social research must continue to play a key role when we tackle the social issues of the future.
Susan Ng: Dr Ng, thank you very much for a very insightful and actually quite inspiring discussion on the homelessness issue in Singapore. And I do hope that you can count us in your numbers as we move forward to try to change, even a small change. Even if it's just to step up to volunteer with you is a move in the right direction in order to tackle the issue and hopefully to change the landscape of home ownership and homelessness in Singapore. Thank you so much.
Dr Ng Kok Hoe: Thank you very much, Susan. It's been my pleasure.