Life in public rental flats and ways to arrest children’s loss of hope in the future

“I didn’t give them good lives when they were growing up. How can I expect financial support from them?” Fanny lamented. 

Fanny (not her real name) is a single mum living in a two-room rental flat with seven school-going children, whom I met some time back. She was left to care for them alone several years ago after her husband walked out.

Their relatives provided little help. “They have their own financial problems,” she explained.

Thankfully Fanny’s household received significant aid – highly subsidised maternal and primary healthcare, and MediFund, a government endowment for patients facing financial difficulties with healthcare bills. 

The children benefited from the Ministry of Education’s Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS). They were given food coupons, free textbooks and school pocket money. The older ones managed to complete Nitec in the course of their Institute of Technical Education studies. 

But precarity has plagued their lives. They have lived on ComCare for years, on a monthly assistance of $1,500 to $2,000. This is barely enough to cover the family’s basic needs. 

Fanny, concerned that their ComCare assistance may be reduced even if renewed, has never failed to remind her children to be prudent in their spending. They live in uncertainty every six months when the nearby Social Service Office (SSO) reviews their case. 

These stressors left an indelible mark on their lives. As the years went by, the children started to demonstrate frustration with their situation. The older ones avoided me when I tried to understand their difficulties and persuade them to provide some support to Fanny.

I had asked Fanny why her older children in their teens, engaged in part-time work, did not help her with expenses.

They had their own expenses and lives to lead, the teens themselves explained. Soon enough, a few moved out to live with their partners. In time, they stopped visiting Fanny. 

Brandon, and how youth lose hope in the future 

At 16, Brandon (not his real name) is essentially his mother’s primary caregiver. She suffers from schizophrenia and sometimes behaves in worrying ways. 

Once, during a psychotic episode, she accused their family social worker of having an affair with Brandon’s father. Brandon has learnt the best way to manage such situations is to validate his mother’s distress, calm her down and guide her to take her medication. 

A blue-collar worker in construction earning about $2,000 each month, Brandon’s dad is the sole breadwinner. But he struggles to make ends meet, leaving them vulnerable when unexpected expenditures like home repairs arise. 

The family benefits from social assistance schemes like MediFund, subsidised primary healthcare services and mental healthcare at the Institute of Mental Health but the challenges far outstrip the financial aid. 

Like Fanny’s children, Brandon is supported by FAS. He receives free textbooks and some school pocket money. 

And yet Brandon worries about having enough to pay the bills each month. While he does his best to focus on his studies, he feels pessimistic about his future and struggles to concentrate. 

Small rental units a reinforced reminder of poverty

Both Fanny’s and Brandon’s families have access to stable public rental housing. But living in a tiny home reminds them daily of their financial insecurity.

Fanny and her three daughters slept in the only room in the 44 sq m unit. Her four sons took the living room. Living elbow-to-elbow meant they had little space for rest, let alone privacy. Coupled with scorching daytime temperatures, this had made for a combustible mix fuelling tensions, conflict and fights. 

Brandon’s family of three lives in a 23 sq m one-room rental unit. Brandon says the small space lets him keep an eye on his mum, yet he secretly yearns for a place to retreat into as he enters his youth.

Brandon and Fanny’s children experienced what many experts identify as chronic, prolonged stress, common in individuals living in poverty over a protracted period. 

In 2019, Singapore researchers Ong Qiyan, Walter Theseira and Irene Ng examined how chronic debt affects low-income households. They found that not only did financial concerns sap precious mental resources and affect psychological functioning, these also crippled the ability to make better, long-term choices for themselves and their families, basically imposing a bandwidth tax on the poor.

It is not surprising to see that the financial instability in families like Fanny’s and Brandon’s can similarly affect their psychological well-being. 

But imagine if Fanny and her children lived in a spacious three-room flat affording each of the kids space for naps, quiet study and play without getting in one another’s faces. 

Imagine if Brandon and his family lived in a two-room rental unit, with a room of his own, instead of being forced to witness every fight between his parents and deal with every one of his mother’s meltdowns.

If we limit the occupancy in public rental flats the same way we limit the number of occupants in the open market rental or extend larger subsidised public rental units to families with school-going children, we can eradicate several difficulties such kids experience.

Nobody wants to live in an overcrowded home. Sick family members pass what they have to everyone else. Tempers fly more readily when interactions are forced among people with nowhere else to go. 

Proliferation of programmes to alleviate poverty

There has been a proliferation of social services and programmes over the past decade aiming to alleviate poverty and ignite social mobility, particularly among rental housing clients.

We have seen the introduction of home ownership programmes like the Fresh Start Housing Scheme and Keystart Home Ownership Programme, providing tangible support to low-income families with children hoping for a home of their own.

We have witnessed a surge in innovative, ground-up programmes like the Methodist Welfare Services Family Development Programme matching savings scheme, the Central Community Development Council’s CashUP Family Saver financial literacy programme and the Community Link Programme providing comprehensive support.

Broad-based schemes like the ComCare Assistance have been adjusted over time for inflation. Families on this scheme also now automatically qualify for other aid, enabling low-income families to get help more easily and in a shorter time.

However, it may be time to examine why, even with this added financial support, households in public rental housing continue to face tremendous chronic stress in their daily lives – stress impacts their cognitive, socio-emotional and physical health outcomes significantly, rendering them vulnerable to feelings of isolation from society.

The solution: easing poverty-related bandwidth taxes

In her President’s Address, Madam Halimah Yacob emphasised the need to

expand opportunities throughout life for every citizen

, regardless of his starting point, so Singapore will be less stratified and more socially mobile over time. The solutions to alleviate poverty must therefore include interventions to ease bandwidth taxes in low-income households, because poverty already imposes a cognitive burden, making it more difficult for such individuals to do things many of us take for granted – finding a good job, pursuing higher education and investing in the future.

What if Fanny and Brandon’s parents need not worry about renewal of their rental leases and the possible rise in rent? A longer lease of, say, five years can help provide more stability in their lives.

What if all families with children living in rental housing automatically qualify for the Keystart Home Ownership Programme or the Fresh Start Housing Scheme? They have something to work towards if the path to owning a larger home is clear.

And what if they need to renew their cash assistance only every year instead of every few months? What if the financial aid received is a little more, so they can contribute to a savings programme? 

Income insufficiency can lead to poor outcomes in children. Creating longer-term cash assistance schemes, longer-term public rental housing schemes, direct access to home ownership programmes and easier access to means where families can build financial buffers – these can create more stability for households in public rental housing. 

This in turn, can greatly alleviate the worries and anxiety of children living in these homes and create more headspace for them to achieve their human potential.

*Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identities of the families mentioned.