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There’s a certain kind of judgment that gets levelled on you, when you define affordable housing not just as a roof over your head. If you add that it also has to be fairly near your workplace, near your children’s school, near food outlets, etc. that’s when people raise their eyebrows and start thinking you’re going a bit too far.  Now that’s not totally unfounded; I’ve met people who define “affordable housing” as when they can afford a penthouse near Orchard Road. (Also on the flip side, there are some people who feel you should be content with a cave, a fire, and a hunk of raw meat. Generally, the people who start stories with “ )  But let’s try to find a middle ground here. With the caveat that we shouldn’t be too entitled, consider the many ways housing subtly – or not so subtly – affects your life: How many people in lower-income brackets, forced to take a home wherever they can, are incapable of optimising their earnings due to distance? A single parent with a toddler gets an offer for a higher paying job in Marine Parade, but they can’t afford to rent or buy there; so they keep their nearby job in Jurong West.  These are actual situations I’ve come across, and it shows how the lack of affordable housing is a chicken-and-egg situation: they could raise their income if they could afford a different location; but they can’t afford that location because they can’t raise their income. Then there’s the issue of inequality, and slowly being squeezed out of your own neighbourhood. We saw this : Perhaps your home was affordable when you bought it, but over time, a wave of gentrification sweeps in. Higher-income people outbid poorer people for homes near you. Expat workers, attracted by the trendy vibe, easily outbid other tenants.  Businesses around you warp to cater to the new, well-heeled residents; and suddenly the closest place to get a cup of coffee is charging you $10 a cup. Through no fault of your own, you suddenly can’t afford to live in the place you’ve stayed for decades. The solution is often a merciless “ Which is an ice-cold way to tell poorer people they’re being kicked out.   Then consider the impact on family sizes, and the eventual effect of a declining population. Assume the price of a resale flat is about $500 per square foot. An extra room for your children – let’s say about 250 square feet – is an extra $125,000. And we also need to consider that homes near desirable schools tend to be priced higher. It’s made a bit worse by the fact that, when you buy a flat, you’re locked into that location for at least five years – so whether you can afford a given school is also related to whether you can afford a home there. It can that way, when someone complains that housing is unaffordable because it’s too far from work and impacts their job; or that their children can’t be near a better school, etc. And again, we do have to draw lines, so that may be true. But we need to be careful not to degenerate into chest-thumping, “ mentalities, where we just discount these people as spoiled.  After all, improving education and job prospects – through housing as well as other means – could contribute far more to our economy in the long term than it costs. It’s one reason why we need to look beyond “five times annual income” or wage-to-home cost ratios when deciding what’s affordable.  For more on the Singapore property market, follow us on Stacked.