Update on Enhancements to Single Room Shared Facilities Initiative

12 Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether he can provide a status update on the Single Room Shared Facilities initiative; and (b) what suggestions are received to enhance the said initiative.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Desmond Lee): Mr Deputy Speaker, we are launching a pilot of a new type of rental housing, which we call the Single Room Shared Facilities (SRSF), to provide more options for lower-income individuals under the Public Rental Scheme. With the SRSF, we aim to provide more privacy for tenants while making good use of limited space, and the shared facilities and communal spaces will enable social interaction and reduce the risk of social isolation. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is currently refurbishing the premises at the former Anderson Junior College hostel to prepare for the pilot and applications will open in December 2023.

Since the announcement, we have received feedback of interest in applying for the pilot. We have also received suggestions about the amenities to be provided for the shared facilities, such as the kitchens and laundry rooms; received suggestions on the measures that we could take to tackle social isolation; received suggestions on the manner of facilities, management and upkeep; suggestions on the types of social interventions and community services that may be provided, and we will adopt these where possible. As this is a pilot, we will work alongside the appointed social service agency operator to refine the model as we gain experience.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to thank the Minister for the HDB rental units, especially for all the good work and helpful work that they have rendered to me and my residents. I also wish to compliment HDB and the Ministry of National Development (MND) for this SRSF initiative, which I thought was very important because it addresses the gaps for the homeless and also the tenants who cannot get along well with each other. So, if designed well, it will reduce many of the appeals that we are receiving at our Meet-the-People sessions each week.

Sir, I want to find out what is the timeframe to take in all the improvements or suggestions that the Minister has mentioned and also what is the plan to scale this initiative. This is because every week, we are still receiving a lot of feedback on rental tenants who just cannot get along with each other. And the need for just more privacy for rental tenants of HDB flats is still there; the demand is there. So, I would like to ask the Minister about the scalability.

Mr Desmond Lee: I would like to thank the Member for being a very passionate advocate for the needs of the lower-income, especially those who are residing in rental housing, transitional shelters and so on.

The various suggestions came to us first in the course of our consultation before we launched the pilot in March of this year. Before we launched the pilot, we had, last year, engaged social work professionals, social service agencies, academics, researchers, community workers and so on. Some of these ideas have actually been incorporated in this pilot and you will see some of these in place when we launch the first round of applications for tenants in December of this year.

The other ideas will be studied and some of these ideas include the kinds of social interventions that can take place for the residents of this pilot project. When the social service agency comes on board, we will work with the operator to see whether some of these can be trialed.

The second question that the Member asked is when can this be scaled up. This pilot will allow us to accommodate up to a maximum of some 480 single rooms; that is, 480 individuals. So, there will be some capacity there. But as to when this can be scaled up, I think we will let the pilot run its course first. Let us assess how the tenants interact with each other, with the social service agency operator in the shared facilities, and let us learn from this pilot.

Having said that, I think it is important to contextualise this pilot, given the other things that we are doing. For example, we have been putting partitions in rental flats – both retrofitting existing ones as well as building new rental flats that come with partitions for individuals under the Joint Singles Scheme (JSS). We have been piloting the JSS Operator-Run pilot (JSS-OR). And we have earlier announced this year that we will extend the pilot to more sites. This involves two individuals sharing under the JSS rental flat with a social service agency coming in to match tenants, to address disputes and, of course, to provide social support.

This SRSF pilot tests the viability of giving each individual privacy in a room of his or her own. But to prevent and tackle the risk of social isolation, you have facilities that are shared on every floor as well as on the ground floor and a social service agency with professionals coming in to provide programming, community interventions as well as social work interventions. So, let this pilot run. Let it run for some time and if it is feasible, it may go into the design of future rental flats.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): I thank the Minister for his answer. I understand as well that it is currently a pilot scheme, but I am wondering if we have residents that come in to our Meet-the-People sessions and specifically, in our assessment, we feel that they have a strong case, is this something that we can formally make an appeal for?

Mr Desmond Lee: Certainly, I encourage individuals who would like to apply for this pilot unit to do so when we open it in December this year. And I welcome Members of this House to refer residents whom you think will benefit from this pilot.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank the hon Member for bringing up this question. I would like to find out from Minister whether, in the public consultations that happened before the design of this pilot, there were any conversations or discussions around the role of aesthetics in uplifting people and their spirits, and how that could actually contribute to a person's ability to transcend their circumstances for more effective social mobility.

I ask this because we do see in our rental blocks in every constituency that there is very little sense of ownership amongst the residents and pervasive littering acts, and just higher rates of dirtiness and all that happens in every single Town Council, I believe. We know from observing human behaviour that it is easier to upkeep a place that is nice and beautiful than to transform, at your own effort, a place that is dirty into a clean place.

My point here is, are we looking into the mechanics of what it means to enable people to live a good life so that they are more enabled in their spirit towards overcoming the circumstances that they are facing in their lives? I am responding to the controversy around, in social media when the design of the —

Mr Deputy Speaker: Perhaps, Ms Carrie Tan, you can ask your clarification?

Ms Carrie Tan: So, my clarification is – was there any conversation or discussion around this topic during the public consultations? And will MND be looking into the research around this to look at the role of aesthetics in uplifting people's spirits towards breaking out of their difficult circumstances?

Mr Desmond Lee: I thank the Member for her suggestions. Indeed, in the run-up to the announcement of this pilot, as I said, last year, we had engaged a wide range of organisations, professionals, academics and researchers. It was a long session. Of course, we had separate engagements in the lead-up to this. And there were concerns about the infrastructural side of the house – how to maintain, how to upkeep, how would we account for the usage of utilities; very practical stuff.

There were also a lot of people who were concerned about how the pilot site or how the set-up of any future model would enable social interaction as you move to a single unit kind of typology, where you can stay in the room the whole day if you want and not interact; how do you combat the loneliness and social isolation, particularly, given that many of these individuals who will stay there are often victims of circumstances who have difficulties in life and we do not want them to be entirely isolated.

Some were also concerned about how social services and community organisations could make use of the spaces to engage, to draw out the tenants and to be able to provide more holistic support for them. And in the spirit of what we have been doing in ComLink, there was also this suggestion about how a more integrated support could be provided for the tenants of this rental housing typology which, of course, will be of relevance not just to this but other rental pilots as well.

There was, of course, feedback about how community organisations could be brought in to help build community – help to organise activities for the tenants, help to build a sense of community ownership and community spirit amongst the tenants, how volunteers would come in and do community art, alongside the residents.

So, all these were suggested. Some of these would be taken on board, as I said in the response to Member Denise Phua's query.