Written Answer by Ministry of National Development on quarterly cases for housing assistance received by HDB in the last three years

Oct 4, 2022

Ms He Ting Ru: To ask the Minister for National Development

(a) for each quarter in the last three years, how many cases for housing assistance have been received by HDB as broken down into requests for assistance on allocation of HDB units for (i) ownership and (ii) rental respectively; and
(b) what is the success rate of these requests.

Answer:

            In view of the highly-subsidised nature of new public housing flats, HDB conducts public sales exercises – i.e. BTO and Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercises and open booking – for their sale so that all eligible home seekers can have a fair chance to apply for them. Similarly, to ensure fair allocation of highly-subsidised public rental flats to low-income households who have no other housing options, approved applicants will join a queue before they are invited to select a flat.

2          Nevertheless, HDB recognises that some applicants may face extenuating circumstances and require special assistance to meet their urgent housing needs. From January 2020 to June 2022, HDB received about 22,600 and 6,800 requests for priority allocation of a new flat and public rental flat respectively. Each of these appeals were assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration factors such as whether the applicants are facing extenuating circumstances and whether they have other suitable housing options available. The number of appeals received and approved in each year are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: Appeals for priority allocation of a new flat (2020 to June 2022)

Table 2: Appeals for priority allocation of a rental flat (2020 to June 2022)

[1] The number of appeals received is unique to the month. There could be repeated appeals from the same appellant across several months.

[2] Based on the date of approval and may include appeals received from the previous year.