Allocation of Percentage of HDB Community Care Apartments for Seniors to Suitable Younger Persons with Disabilities
Ministry of National DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng’s proposal to allocate a percentage of HDB Community Care Apartments (CCAs) to younger persons with disabilities to facilitate community living. Minister of State Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim replied that CCAs are a new housing-cum-care model currently being piloted for seniors, with two projects under construction. He explained that these pilots require evaluation upon completion before the government considers expanding the target segment to other groups. Meanwhile, a task force under the Enabling Masterplan 2030 is studying diverse community living models and residential options specifically to support persons with disabilities. This task force will provide recommendations next year, while the government continues to support social service agencies in developing initiatives for independent community living.
Transcript
6 Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for National Development whether a percentage of the HDB community care apartments to be launched for seniors can be allotted for suitable younger persons with disabilities so that they can live within the community.
The Minister of State for National Development (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for National Development): Sir, Community Care Apartments, or CCAs, seek to expand the continuum of housing-cum-care options for seniors. CCAs integrate senior-friendly design features with care services that can be scaled up as seniors' needs evolve. The services and activities offered will cater to seniors across a wide range of care needs and enable seniors to age independently in place for as long as they can within the community.
The CCA is a new model. We have launched two pilots, which are still under construction, and we will need to evaluate them when they are operational to ensure that they provide sufficient support to the intended target group before we consider expanding the target segment further.
I would like to assure the Member that Government agencies are actively studying options to support persons with disabilities to live independently in the community. Under the Enabling Masterplan 2030, a task force comprising Government agencies as well as disability social service agencies (SSAs) has been formed to look into community living models and will consider existing gaps as well as new residential options to better support persons with disabilities. We can look forward to the task force's recommendations next year. There are also various SSAs that have initiatives to enable persons with disabilities to live independently in the community and we will support these where we can.