FROM next month, a shophouse in Lavender Street will become a home away from home for male foreign workers without a job or a roof over their heads.

Run by the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home), a welfare group for foreign workers, the shophouse will be the only one of its kind here.

It will replace Home's previous shelter in Petain Road.

Home's executive director Jolovan Wham said some of the workers who approached the welfare group for help have been duped by 'agents' in their home countries. These middlemen promised them jobs here but they arrived only to find out that the openings did not exist.

In some cases, the 'agents' even made off with the workers' return air tickets and passports.

Mr Wham said his organisation sees one such case every three months or so.

Other workers to be housed in the shelter are those who have met with accidents and are awaiting the outcome of insurance claims, or those caught working illegally on expired social visit passes and are waiting ,for their cases to be processed before they are sent home.

The workers come mainly from China, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh.

The new shelter, which is undergoing renovations, will be able to take in about 50 workers when ready, 10 more than the previous Petain Road shelter.

Mr Wham said: 'The conditions will be better. The old place was getting too small.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 15, 2008