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ST Forum Help struggling retirees in private properties PRIVATE property owners, unlike HDB dwellers, are mostly excluded from help programmes and handouts from the Government ('Private home owners' by Mr Tan Guan Rong; Feb 21). While most private property owners are financially better off, it may not be so for seniors or retirees. In my neighbourhood alone, there are two retirees who are siblings and who live in a rundown owner-occupied home they inherited from their parents. The two, a man and his sister, would salvage waste paper and discarded electronic goods to eke out a living. Because of emotional attachment, it is difficult to move out from familiar surroundings, especially as one ages. Selling the property and downgrading is not as simple and straightforward as many make it out to be. That is why the Government should give greater flexibility for retirees to purchase HDB flats to generate a source of steady cash flow from rental payments, provided they have their own funds or can meet the more stringent borrowing requirements for older people without salaries. There are also other similar situations that the Government or institutions can positively discriminate in favour of seniors and retirees. Raymond Koh Bock Swi

Let's be inspired by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqantZJ6WwM...are-struggling/