Affordable housing: Dilemma of the working families with just enough to survive

Affordable housing: Dilemma of the working families with just enough to survive
25/11/2000 NST

Not all urban dwellers are monthly wage-earners who can afford the hefty monthly repayments due to banks for housing loans. A large number still cannot even raise the requisite 10 percent of the purchase price required as deposit as they do not have any savings.

Not being able to afford a roof over their heads to call “home”, where else can they go?

Thus they have no choice but to rent affordable housing. The problem is – where can they find this? The sad thing is that because the State has not been able to provide public housing for rental, a great many Malaysians are forced to rent homes in squatter colonies.

A survey in the US carried out in 1995 revealed that three of out every five “poor renters” spend more than half of their income on rent and utility payments.

So what exactly is “affordable rent”?

According to federal standards in the US, housing should not consume anything beyond 30 percent of a person’s monthly income.

In Malaysia with the exploding urban centers, the shortage of affordable rental housing is becoming more acute.

The setting of new growth centers such as new townships, commercial hubs, industrial parks and offices complexes inevitably result in an increase in the working population.
Having settled down in Alor Star these last five years, I have met many locals here who dread the day they may be transferred to major cities like Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bharu.

I know of a couple of friends who would gladly decline promotions and better pay if it means having to go away.

The 1995 US survey also revealed that the greater proportion of the families who faces problems getting affordable rental housing are “working families”. Over 50 percent of these families have children.

With almost half of their monthly income set aside for rent and utilities, what is left is hardly sufficient to feed and upkeep a growing family.

According to Jennifer Daskal, who led the study, “the number of low-income families unable to find apartments they can rent without paying a lion’s share of their income has continued to mount despite the nation’s tremendous economic growth.

“These families, many of them working poor families with children, have little money left for other necessities.”

So what is the solution, one might ask? A change or shift in policy, from one of “affordable housing” to one of “affordable rental housing”?

Civil servants such as teachers, the police and the army can look forward to the Federal Government to provide them with reasonable living quarters if they cannot afford to buy their own houses.

But what of the private sector? What of the private sector? What of the self-employed? What of those who are only “casually employed” or “in between jobs” or still looking for one?