Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim on improving public rental flats for singles

The Government has been reviewing and improving the Joint Singles Scheme (JSS) for singles who need housing assistance to share rental flats. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) has been building new rental flats with high partitions to provide more privacy. These have been well-received, said Minister of State for National Development Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim. Speaking in reply to an MP's questions in Parliament on Wednesday (Nov 9), he said HDB has also been installing partitions in existing rental flats at the request of tenants. There are now a total of 1,230 partitioned rental flats. He said HDB will continue to include partitions in new rental flats where feasible and install them in existing flats at the request of tenants. HDB is also piloting the JSS Operator-Run model to allow singles to apply for public rental flats individually. Currently, there are three sites with a total of 400 bed spaces. These sites are managed by social service agencies which oversee the flat-sharing arrangements, provide social support and mediate among tenants when needed. Assoc Prof Faishal said the pilot has been well-subscribed. He said HDB is assessing the pilot to see how it can be expanded. It is also looking into alternative typologies and will share the details soon, he said. *Audio issues inherent from source