Written answer by Ministry of National Development on relaxation of income criteria for HDB rental flats

Aug 3, 2023

Question No: 4862

Question by: Mr Ang Wei Neng

To ask 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.

Answer:

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 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.

2          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.

3          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.