Kopitime: When homes become speculative assets, we lose out

I wrote this open letter to Minister Desmond Lee as a concerned citizen who has spent over a decade in service to Singapore's healthcare system.

As the head of research and development for a community-based health provider, my work supports clinicians in both hospital and community settings to design programmes and understand patient needs through data. My educational background includes psychology, philosophy, public health and healthcare economics.

Like many in the non-profit and healthcare sectors, I earn a median-range income (inclusive of CPF) - enough to survive, but far from enough to secure housing in today's market.

My concerns about housing are deeply personal.

I was offered a small merit award at the age of 15 to study in Singapore. My family encouraged me to take it so that I could escape an escalating bad family situation.

Since then, I have lived in borrowed or rented rooms. I had to move frequently and leaned heavily on the generosity of others for shelter.

Even now, after 10 years of stable work and diligent saving, I still cannot afford a permanent place to call home.

When I started working in 2017, I had hoped that, by working hard and saving aggressively, I could build a small war chest to eventually afford a home.

Even when my monthly rent was $900, which was 30 per cent of my income at the time, I was still able to save 40 to 50 per cent of my take-home pay. I felt secure that by the time I reached 35, I would be able to buy a modest unit and later form a family.

However, property prices have increased dramatically all across Singapore and with it, rent and cost of living.

Financial institutions recommend that one should spend no more than 30 per cent of their income on housing or rent. However, the current rental price for just a single room averages 35 to 40 per cent of a median earner's take-home pay.

Day by day, median savings fall increasingly behind. How can we ever catch up?

It seems to me that the simple dignity of secure shelter for all Singaporeans - something I had believed was possible - is dead.

Even though I am proud of my current work, and I cherish the relationships and communities I have built over 10 years, I feel increasingly forced to abandon all of it - my job, my neighbourhood and my connections to the community - to pursue profit-oriented jobs.

I increasingly feel that I have to choose between my life of service and my future survival.

Current narrative not helping

When I approached my MP in Jalan Besar for help, I was told that because of my salary, I would not qualify for any meaningful assistance.

And at 32 years old, I cannot buy a flat before prices balloon further.

My MP tried to give me "advice" that I found incredibly unhelpful: band together with friends to rent a whole unit, asking to rent from a friend at lower prices, etc.

I must highlight just how disconnected these sorts of "suggestions" are from the real issues at hand.

Sharing a unit with unrelated flatmates has already been my default for over 15 years and it is the default for the majority of renters. Such arrangements mean constant uncertainty of living arrangements and lack of privacy.

It is also unreasonable to expect perpetual goodwill and turn every social relationship into a financial negotiation. Friends have their own families to care for and space is increasingly scarce as modern designs become more compact (or "cosy" if you are a realtor).

My situation, and that of many other residents, is not the result of individual choice or lack of effort, but of structural failures: options and assistance are gated by income and age thresholds, and stable housing is treated as a privilege for households that fit policy moulds.

What of the rest of us who do not have a family to turn back to, and those of us who cannot form families because we do not have the homes to do so?

We don't need sympathy, we need action.

I can personally attest that searching for rentals, vetting the validity and safety of the space, comparing options and negotiating with owners and agents can take hours or even days.

It can be demoralising to see that our pay can afford only increasingly poorer conditions.

This volatility fractures communities. When people are pushed away from finding homes in their communities due to price and rent, communities are poisoned and eroded over time. People will focus on the value of their house, rather than the quality of their neighbourhood.

There are the hidden and additional costs of frequently changing addresses and moving to different rooms.

I chose to become a citizen because I deeply believed that I belonged in Singapore.

Perhaps I was mistaken.

Perhaps I have been too naive to hope that people like me could ever achieve that dignity of having a home here.

I hope the government will relook at how housing is governed in Singapore.

Housing should not be a speculative commodity. Prioritise housing and properties as social infrastructure first, and profit centres second. Protect the backbone of our economy by really assuring people that at least we will have shelter and space.

How we address housing today will determine the strength and unity of our society tomorrow.

I urge you to restore faith in Singapore's social contract by placing people, not profit, at the centre of our housing policies.

Yeo Zhi Zheng