Need to rethink on housing policy

Leong Sze Hian wrote an article in the TRE on the rejection of an appeal by single parents to allow them to own HDB flats. Here is a quote from his article,
‘… “A parliamentary petition by an MP, on behalf of seven single parents, calling for a reform of the public housing policy for single parents has been turned down.
 
Nee Soon GRC MP Louis Ng wants the authorities to recognise unmarried parents and their children as a family nucleus, so that they can be eligible for public housing schemes.
 
The ministry, which oversees public housing, said it has no intention to amend the law and introduce exemptions for unmarried and divorced parents.”…
 
As to “It said the Government is committed to housing the nation, and ensuring the well-being of children.’

My basic instinct on reading the above is that you do not go to beg a rich man for pity. In a documentary on the rich in India, a reply from a very rich man was that the people begging in the streets were idiots. I can understand where he is coming from. When one is very successful, one feels that one earns his keep, one is very talented and deserved everything while those that were failures deserved to be failures. I can only hope fortune will keep smiling on these ‘clever and very rich people’. They have little compassion for the poor. They did not know that in life, many things are beyond the control of the down trodden. It is life and fortunes can change within one’s life time.
 
Our public housing policy is just as brutal as the comment from the rich man in India. It is as good as you die your business. You are given two chances and if you squandered it, you blame yourself. This kind of heartless and arrogant view about life and the losers could only come from people that have not experienced hardship or thought that they were blessed with talent and their lives would always be smooth sailing, even for their children.
 
Life is not as simple and predictable as the high and mighty would want to believe. But that is their private life and they can go on believing that they would always have a good life because they are very clever. On the other hand, a govt is to look after the well beings of the people. And there would be many people that ended up as losers and failures financially, some by self destruct, some by circumstances beyond their control, some due to bad luck.
 
We have screwed up our public housing programme due to high and mighty thinking. It is time to review the cruel and ruthless rulings and to really think of building homes for the people. A roof on the head is basic necessity. No one can go without it. The parents may be failures or losers, their children are innocent. Stop the rubbish about double your asset price. A home is a home and is not a gambling chip.
 
The govt must go back to basics and see it as its primary duty to provide affordable, I mean really affordable homes, not one that you have to pay a whole life, with your limbs for it. The policy of two bites of the cherry is inadequate for a life time. And it is very cruel for civilised people to think that it is ok, a right thing to do.
 
The govt should build as many HDB flats as needed for the people. No limits to how many times a person buys and sell his flats. When there are enough of flats readily available, no one can go on buying and selling public flats or even private properties. For public housing, just limit it to one at a time and no ownership of more than one at any one time. Maybe a 3 to 5 year time bar would be more than adequate to prevent abuses. When everyone has a home, and can have a home from HDB at short notice, there will be no inflation of prices like what is going on now. A caveat, stop the crazy unrestrained influx of foreigners to artificially jack up property prices or at least banned foreigners from public housing.
 
Everyone needs a home, a roof over his head. Single parenthood, divorced, broken families, etc etc, no difference. This is the basic responsibility of the govt. Period.
 
Go and rethink and reflect on this unfeeling public housing policies and think of serving the people and the needs of the people. Not everyone is so fortunate to lead a life of plenty. There will always be the unfortunate. Public housing policies must be caring and compassionate and all inclusive. No one should be left behind. No Singaporeans should be left behind. Forget about the foreigners or the so called locals. They came here on their own because things are better here. They are not the responsibility of an elected govt by the people. The govt is responsible to the people that elected them to run the country, not to serve the foreigners and non citizen locals.
 
Did I get my points across to the high and mighty, the uncaring gods and immortals? The insincerity of it all is that they can turn a blind eye to the sufferings of the single mothers or broken families without a roof over their heads. They simply don’t care. This is my system, accept it or lump it, you mess it up, not my problem. You voted for it, you voted ME to make these policies. You asked for it.