The Ministry of National Development's (MND) plans, revealed in Parliament this week, to buy back flats that owners are unable to sell when ethnic quota limits are reached, to raise the quantum of a grant to help families in public rental flats buy their second Housing Board flat, and to help singles move into rental flats are all indications of a regular refining of public housing policy so as to keep it equitable.

The first policy tweak has been, perhaps, a widely anticipated one because it upholds the core principles of Singapore's multiracial housing policy amid changing circumstances. Introduced in 1989, the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) set racial quotas on flat ownership within each HDB block and neighbourhood at the point when a flat is purchased, and subsequently when it is resold. Today, nearly one in three HDB blocks, and 16 per cent of HDB neighbourhoods, have reached one or more of the EIP limits. Hence, it was announced in Parliament that home owners who have difficulty selling their flats because of ethnic quota limits can now request the HDB to buy back their units, subject to certain criteria of eligibility. Although the measure would impose costs on the State, it was a welcome move because it would uphold the EIP's fundamental importance in underwriting Singapore's multiracial compact. Public housing has facilitated and helped bring people from different ethnic backgrounds to live together rather than retreat into ethnic ghettos that exacerbate the social forces that tend to divide them. What the latest MND move now does is to financially alleviate the real problems faced by some owners, while ensuring that public housing remains a centrepiece of the larger social objective of preserving the multiracial tenor of everyday life.