EVALUATION OF ELDERLY PUBLIC HOUSING POLICIES: �AGEING IN PLACE � AND SENIOR HOUSING MONETISATION POLICIES

Abstract

Over the years, public housing has become a critical and indispensable part of Singapore as a result of the promotion of homeownership through the use of CPF. However, there are significant changes to the socioeconomic and demographic assumptions that guided the formulation of public housing policies. Thus, HDB has been successful in providing affordable homes for majority of the nation’s population but the exponential increase in the number of senior citizens have to be taken into serious consideration in the current and future public housing planning. The main aspects of the elderly public housing policies include “Ageing in Place” concept and housing monetisation policies. The key policies for “Ageing in Place” include encouraging families to live in close proximity for mutual support through several schemes as well as housing estate rejuvenation through various upgrading programmes. The main housing monetisation policies include Silver Housing Bonus, Lease Buyback Scheme and subletting. This study seeks to evaluate and to acquire a deeper understanding of senior citizen’s perceptions on these policies. A qualitative research was conducted through in-depth interviews on a face-to-face basis and the questions are open-ended and semi-structured in nature to guide their responses. The findings were presented through partial verbatim transcriptions. Majority of the respondents expressed their intentions to age in a familiar environment and the housing estate rejuvenation policies were effective in helping them age in place. However, many elderly prefer to live independently but are open to living near their children. The main reason cited for the preference of Silver Housing Bonus is that elderly could bequeath their homes to children and those without children prefer Lease Buyback Scheme as it allows them to age in place. There were mixed responses for subletting as many expressed their unwillingness to live with strangers.