ComCare Support for Those Who Do Not Stay in Public Rental Housing and Extension of ComLink+ To Them

Sir, around half of households that received ComCare support in 2022 and 2023 did not reside in public rental housing. This translates to about 20,000 households. Many of these received Short- to Medium-Term Assistance, and may have been going through a temporary setback in life.

In addition to families with children residing in public rental housing, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) will also offer ComLink+ to lower-income families that are not residing in public rental housing but who are eligible for KidSTART or the UPLIFT Community Network. We aim to reach 3,000 such households over the next three years. Like other ComLink+ families, these families can be offered the ComLink+ Progress Packages if they take active steps towards securing a better future for themselves.

ComLink+ represents society’s determination and good intention to uplift our lower-income households and to ensure no one is left behind as Singapore progresses. MSF’s focus during the three-year pilot is to make sure that we translate intentions into concrete and significant results for these families. Only then would we consider if ComLink+ should be expanded further to cover other groups of lower-income families.

Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the answer. Of the 20,000 households not in public rental housing and receiving ComCare, how many are there not already enrolled in KidSTART, UPLIFT or Project DIAN, and what are the plans to engage these families in order to extend ComLink+ to them?

Sir, I thank the Member for his supplementary question. As I mentioned, there are about 3,000 households who are not in rental flat housing but qualify for KidSTART or UPLIFT Community Network. So, in the next phase of ComLink+ in the next three years, where we are trialling our ComLink+ progress packages, we will be reaching out to these 3,000 families. And if these ComLink+ progress packages prove indeed successful, we will then consider reaching out to more lower-income families beyond these 3,000.