Relaxation of Income Criteria for HDB Rental Flats
Ministry of National DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Ang Wei Neng's inquiry on whether HDB will relax income criteria for rental flats and the statistics regarding applicants with household incomes exceeding $1,500. Minister for National Development Mr Desmond Lee clarified that HDB employs a holistic, needs-based approach rather than a fixed income ceiling, considering factors like family support and housing affordability. He noted that as of June 2023, approximately 9,000 households earning above $1,500 were renting HDB flats and that income references were recently removed from the HDB website. Because HDB does not reject applicants based on income alone, the Ministry does not specifically track rejection numbers for households exceeding the $1,500 threshold. This approach ensures that the Public Rental Scheme remains a social safety net for citizen households who have no other housing options.
Transcript
27 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether HDB will relax the income criteria for HDB rental flats in light of the per capita income benchmark for Comcare assistance being raised; (b) how many appeals for HDB rental flats have been rejected in the past three years due to household income higher than $1,500 per month; and (c) how many HDB rental flats are rented out under family or joint singles schemes as of June 2023 despite not meeting the household income criteria.
Mr Desmond Lee: The Public Rental Scheme is a social safety net for citizen households with no other housing options. There is no income ceiling for the Public Rental Scheme and the Housing and Development Board (HDB) does not reject applicants based on income alone. Instead, HDB takes a needs-based approach and reviews all requests for public rental holistically. Various factors, such as applicants' circumstances, household size, family support and ability to afford other housing options, will be considered. Those who do not have family support and cannot afford other housing options will be assisted with a public rental flat, and HDB has approved many applications from households with incomes above $1,500. As at June 2023, some 9,000 flats are rented out under the Public Rental Scheme to households with incomes above $1,500.
Indeed, to better reflect HDB’s holistic and needs-based approach towards public rental applications, we have recently updated the HDB website to remove references to any income figure. This may also help to lower the psychological barrier to applying for those who might be in need of public rental.
As HDB does not reject applicants based on income alone, we do not specifically track the number of rejected applicants with household incomes above $1,500.