Accelerating Pace of Response to Requests for Public Rental Flats
Ministry of National DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Kwek Hian Chuan Henry’s inquiry on whether HDB can expedite responses to rental flat requests for families facing financial and housing distress. Minister Desmond Lee replied that HDB aims to evaluate applications within three weeks, though complex cases requiring additional documentation or social service coordination may take longer. He explained that allocation wait times increased to five months due to construction labour shortages and the necessary refurbishment of 2,000 former COVID-19 emergency housing units. HDB is currently working to accelerate sprucing works and maintains priority allocation for urgent medical or extenuating cases, which comprised one-third of successful 2020 applicants. Individuals in immediate housing distress are encouraged to seek help from Social Service Offices, Family Service Centres, or crisis shelters via the ComCare hotline.
Transcript
87 Mr Kwek Hian Chuan Henry asked the Minister for National Development whether HDB can accelerate the pace of response to rental flat requests so as to support Singaporean families facing urgent financial and housing distress.
Mr Desmond Lee: HDB aims to evaluate and respond to requests for a rental flat within three weeks of receiving the required information from applicants. This provides applicants with certainty on whether they are eligible for a rental flat.
For complex cases, HDB may need more time to understand the applicant’s circumstances and housing options, including working with social service agencies to address the underlying causes of the applicant’s housing situation. In some cases, applicants may need some time to submit additional documents to support their requests. Should more time be needed for evaluation, HDB will provide interim updates to assure applicants that their requests are being looked into.
The waiting time for successful applicants to be allocated a rental flat has increased from about two months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to about five months currently. Due to the severe labour crunch that the construction industry is facing, a longer time is required to spruce up rental flats that have been returned to HDB before they are let out to new tenants. In addition, HDB had activated over 2,000 rental units as emergency housing in support of the fight against COVID-19. While these units have since been returned to the public rental pool, they also require sprucing works before they can be let out. To reduce the waiting time for rental flats, HDB is working on measures to speed up the sprucing works and facilitate key collections as quickly as possible.
For applicants with urgent housing needs such as medical grounds or other extenuating circumstances, HDB will expedite their key collection. In 2020, about a third of our successful rental applicants were granted priority allocation.
Anyone facing sudden housing distress and who is in need of immediate shelter should approach a Social Service Office, a Family Service Centre, or call the ComCare hotline to seek help from a crisis shelter.