Coveting Singapore’s public housing system, By Kathy Chu, March 15, 2011, USA Today: “Singapore’s public housing system is often touted as a model for other countries. The island nation houses more than 80% of its residents in public housing. It’s building eco-friendly apartment buildings that have green roofs and that use recycled water. Instead of renting the public housing units, Singaporeans can also become quasi-homeowners, buying 99-year leases on the properties that they can later sell at market prices. But as the economy here has recovered from the 2008 recession, public housing prices have skyrocketed. High prices are making it hard for some of the very residents for whom Singapore’s public housing was intended to buy a flat on the resale market…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty