‘Is my skin colour the reason I can’t find a place to rent in Singapore?’

SINGAPORE: The Lion City prides itself on its diversity of cultures, traditions, and religious beliefs that collectively outline its national uniqueness. From Little India to Chinatown, Geylang Serai to Tiong Bahru, the city-state wears its multiculturalism on its sleeve. Yet, underneath this wisely refined consensus is a painful reality — for many tenants or prospective renters from minority backgrounds, Singapore isn’t always the home they expected it to be.

For Indian renters, especially, the quest for rental housing is peppered with qualifications, warnings, veiled language, and total rejection. “No Indians,” could be read from a social media ad. Or occasionally, it’s implied in understatements: “Landlord prefer certain profiles.” These aren’t isolated incidents, they’re the reverberations of an established, universal issue that remains plaguing Singapore’s rental market, notwithstanding increasing awareness and public discourse.

For the renter named Sarah featured in a Rice Media video interview, the recurrent question is — “Are you a high-class Indian or a low-class Indian”?

The illusion of progress

Over the years, social media and journalism have shone a persistent and undaunted light on biased rental practices. The reactions have been immediate and vocal, but actual change has been sluggish.

More people are speaking up, but landlords still hold the power, an idea floated in one YouTube video. Despite the renters being employed in reputable firms and holding valid employment passes, they spend months trying to find a landlord who would rent to them.

In that video, the Indian nationals also confided that they would send a message to agents or landlords, and they’d ask for the nationality and race first. Once they knew it’s Indian, many would just stop replying.

It’s a common experience among minority tenants, predominantly those of Indian or Bangladeshi lineage. Agents, usually caught between renters and landlords, confess that they are occasionally instructed to screen by nationality and background. Most of the time, it cannot be found in the listing, but it’s in the whispered talks: “Client prefers Chinese tenant.” “Indian tenants not accepted, sorry.”

The biases that linger

What drives this inaudible prejudice? Landlords cite reasons ranging from cooking odours to expectations about hygiene, clatter, or cultural fit. These explanations, however, are hardly evidence-based and frequently drenched in obsolete stereotypes.

These observations continue, partially because of disinterest and, to some extent, due to a deficiency in policy implementation. Singapore has anti-discrimination procedures for employment, but as far as housing is concerned, much is left to casual arrangements and self-regulation.

A home for all

As Singapore continues to progress, it must choose what kind of multiculturalism it wants to represent — one that occurs only as a concept, or one that’s ingrained into the very walls of the homes people live in.

There is a need to stop pretending that it’s not taking place, and to stop normalising it when it does. Till then, minority tenants will continue to push themselves and navigate in an unseen minefield.