Replying to a question in Parliament on Tuesday, she emphasised that this included whether they wanted to approach government agencies like the Community Development Councils (CDCs) for help.
The Community Care Endowment Fund (ComCare) provides assistance for low-income and needy Singaporeans.
The funding and programmes are delivered through the CDCs.
Madam Halimah told the House that ComCare beneficiaries are a diverse mix of needy Singaporeans who need different forms of assistance and for varying periods of time.
They include: elderly persons who are unable to work and need long term assistance, families who require short term help because the breadwinners have been retrenched from their jobs, and families with members recovering from chronic illnesses and parents who require financial support so that their children can attend preschool.
She agreed that the services provided by the CDCs can be better coordinated and communicated.
The Ministry and its partners identify ways in which it can adopt an even more client-centric approach in the delivery of social assistance and services to the needy.
She cited a survey of some 2,000 low income households in the bottom 20 per cent showed that one in 10 needed some form of help.
But the same survey also revealed that sixty per cent of them wanted to be self-sufficient - a principle which Madam Halimah's mother upheld during her childhood days.
Madam Halimah said: "As I was growing up, I belong to the bottom 10 per cent of the population and when I went to school, my teachers often ask me: 'Why don't you get your mother to get social welfare and social assistance'. But my mother would be terribly horrified to any suggestion that she should get social welfare or social assistance. My father died when I was eight years old and my mother said as long as we had two hands and two legs, we would all survive. So we need to respect the desires of people, even though they may be in the bottom 20 percent, to say that they have ownership of their lives."
Madam Halimah stressed that families should be the ones to decide whether they wanted to seek help or not.
She said: "They want to decide whether they want to seek help or or not seek help. We cannot say that just because you are in the bottom 20 per cent, we must extend help to you regardless of whether you want it or not. That is not the philosophy we should adopt."
- CNA/fa
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