Metro

Monday July 6, 2009

Urban poor in dire straits

By BAVANI M


WITH rising costs, can a family of five manage on an average income of RM700 in Kuala Lumpur? Where do they live and how are they coping?

AT first glance, the house resembled a store room filled with unwanted items. But upon closer look, these items are necessities to the occupants.

Resilient: Choo selling old newspapers to make ends meet.

Old newspapers, cardboard, tin cans and anything that can be sold fills the nook, corner and crany of the house.

The disorder and level of poverty is shocking. The kitchen looks more like a garbage dump and zinc is used for the roof which leaks during a downpour.

There is no water supply but surprisingly there is electricity. But a notice informing its owner that payment is due lies on a table in the filthy kitchen – a stark reminder of the harsh realities of life.

The house is the abode of Choo Ah Chai. At 67, when most people are enjoying their golden years with their loved ones, Choo is constantly worried about unpaid bills.

But the gregarious yet gentle woman is not one to sit on her laurels and is determined to stand on her own two feet as long as possible in order to live her life in dignity.

Choo lives in a house built by her late husband. It is situated close to a river reserve land in Kg Manggis in Jalan Kelang Lama. Her shelter is surrounded by garbage, filth and is an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes and the strays dogs that she has adopted.

She makes a living by selling recycling materials such as newspapers and cardboard boxes as well as the vegetables that she plants behind her house.

Her monthly income of RM100 and sometimes less is hardly enough for her to survive on but thankfully, a welfare organisation called Centre For Immediate Aid (Centraid), provides her with basic necessities such as groceries every month to help her get by.

Meanwhile, over at the edge of Choo’s neighbourhood, a seven-year-old little girl, is seen working alone in the kitchen of her longhouse in Jalan Kelang Lama.

Komala Sathiavelu helps out with chores like washing rice, cutting vegetables and cleaning up the house as her mother Malika Krishnan, 35, is a kidney patient and has to undergo dialysis three times a week in Petaling Jaya.

While Socso pays for the dialysis, Malika still needs money for injections but she cannot afford these.

She is also constantly worried about transportation to get to Petaling Jaya for dialysis. Buses do not ply her neighbourhood and taxis are a luxury that she cannot even consider.

To make matters worse, she also has to worry about the future of Komala and her five-year-old son.

Not far away, single mother N.Parvathi, whose home was razed in a fire last year, now lives in a low-cost flat in Kampung Datuk Harun in Jalan Kelang Lama with her 83-year-old mother-in-law and four sons aged between 12 and three years.

Dependent on aid: Centraid volunteers K. Lekha and B. Muralidharan interviewing single mother Parvathi (with child on lap) and her family.

She has been staying rent-free for over a year, thanks to the generosity of the developer of the project. But Parvathi, who does odd jobs to make ends meet, is aware that this arrangement is not permanent.

The three cases reported above depicts the lives of poor families living below the poverty line and are common in a booming city like Kuala Lumpur.

And while most poor people in developing countries are based in rural areas, urban poverty is a phenomenon that is even more debilitating than rural poverty.

“This is because in urban areas, access to goods and services depends entirely on having money,” said Centraid vice-president P. Prathap.

“Unlike rural areas, where the community is able to survive by growing and selling food, this is not possible in the city,” he said.

A report released by the Economic Planning Unit revealed that 25% of Kuala Lumpur’s population live in squatter settlements where the poverty line is below RM400.

Currently, the rate has dropped to less than 4%, yet many belive that the actual number of poor people could be much higher in view of the high cost of living.

“The government should seriously look at revising the poverty line which has been set at RM590 for a long time,’’ said Anis Yusal Yusoff, principal of Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

In order to apply for welfare aid now, a person’s income must not exceed RM720 per month. This amount is no longer realistic today.

“At present, the government’s methodology of measuring the poverty line is based on three components like nutrition value, clothing and utilities.

“With the advent of the Internet, handphone and even public transport, the figure is no longer realistic,” said Anis, adding that urban poverty should no longer be based on income alone.

“Due to the high cost of living now, the poverty line must be re-examined. It is no longer possible for a family of five to survive in Kuala Lumpur with only RM720,” he said.

Another aspect that needs to be studied is the safety net factor. For instance, most of the urban poor are self-employed.

Helpful: Little Komala doing chores to help her mother, a kidney patient.

They work as taxi drivers, drain sweepers, maids, babysitters and are not covered by EPF, Socso or medical insurance. Their social protection is non-existent.

Agencies like the DBKL, through its poverty eradication and zero squatter policies, are trying to improve the plight of the urban poor by relocating them to the various government-funded housing schemes in the city.

But such efforts, despite the good intentions, may not be helping the poor, especially the elderly, children and single mothers who rely on public transport to get to work, to the clinics and government hospitals and schools.

“At the end of the day, they have to spend more money to pay for school buses and public transport and what about the housing schemes with no public tranport? These are questions that need to be addressed by the Goverment,” Prathap said.

Anis is in agreement with this and said: “There must be better co-ordination in poverty eradication and to do that, the authorities need to look at the bigger picture and adopt a more holistic approach to tackle urban poverty in the city as otherwise, the problem will never be resolved.”

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