Support for Residents in HDB Estates Without Hawker Centres and Measures to Ensure Meal Affordability for Seniors

Dr Charlene Chen asked the Minister for National Development in view of the relatively higher prices charged by coffeeshops compared with hawker centres (a) whether the Ministry has plans to provide additional support to residents, particularly seniors, in HDB estates without hawker centres; and (b) what measures, including expanding and publicising assistance schemes, can be taken to improve affordability and ensure accessible meal options for an ageing population.

The Housing and Development Board (HDB) provides a good supply of coffeeshops in every HDB town and estate, to maintain healthy competition and price diversity, complementing our national network of hawkers centres. To further safeguard the availability of affordable cooked food options in the heartlands, HDB has required all new rental coffeeshops let out under its Price-Quality Method (PQM) tender framework since 2018 to provide budget meals. In other words, HDB accepts lower rental bids from these PQM tenders in exchange for the operator using the cost savings to offer affordable meal options for residents. Since 2023, this requirement was extended to all rental coffeeshops renewing their tenancies with HDB, as well as new buyers of privately-owned HDB coffeeshops.

To extend the reach of this scheme, HDB also worked with the Community Development Councils (CDC) and Enterprise Singapore to jointly encourage coffeeshop operators to offer budget meals as well as accept CDC Vouchers, under the Community Budget Meal initiative.

All coffeeshops offering budget meals are listed on BudgetMealGoWhere, an online platform that helps the public locate budget meal and drink options nearby. To reach out to more people, including seniors who may not be active online, we have also publicised the Budget Meal initiative via mainstream media, including newspapers and radio channels.

This year, the Government has also provided CDC vouchers and SG60 vouchers to Singaporean households and adult Singaporeans respectively, which can be used at participating heartland merchants and hawkers. For SG60 vouchers, a higher quantum was given to seniors aged 60 and above as additional help with their daily expenses.