For many of the longhouse residents in Taman Medan, this "temporary" housing has been home for more than 20 years. One woman, 55, says she has seen her five children grow up,neighbours marry and have children. She works at a golf course in Subang, maintaining the greens, while her husband is a boilerman in factory nearby.

A neighbour, 34, also has five children, aged between three months and 3 years (those interviewed did not want to be named). She laughs when I mention the government's official definition of the poor - those with monthly household income below the official Poverty Line Income (PLI), which is RM529 in Peninsular Malaysia, RM600 in Sarawak and RM690 in Sabah. Those with a monthly income of RM265 or less are deemed hardcore poor.

"Our income is below RM2,000 a month. But do we look rich?" she sneers. Her husband, a truck driver, is the sole breadwinner. At least RM600 goes to groceries, while RM300 goes to utilities and RM100 for gas for the family's jalopy. Three of the kids are in school and that means the family has to spend on school supplies, uniforms, shoes and transportation.

"I do get worried if someone is ill but so far, we've been lucky. There have been no major medical bills," she says. "We are able to put away a little for savings, but not much."

Her neighbour, a 33-year-old mother of three aged three to six years, says her family's average monthly income is between RM1,500 and RM2,000. Her husband, a fishmonger in a wet market nearby, borrowed RM7,000 from a moneylender to set up the little business.

Business was bad after the little tsunami but he still had to fork out RM600 a month to repay the loan, she says.

These families do not fit into the officially defined categories of poverty but neither do they see themselves as financially stable. One resident, the sole breadwinner of his family, who supports four children and an aged mother, has a full-time job with a media company. Even so, he drives a taxi on weekends to supplement the family's income because the cost of living in the city is high.

The real picture

Their lives debunk the myth that the poor are mainly in the rural areas while those who live in the city have no difficulty making ends meet. The rural-urban migration in past decades was partly driven by hopes of better jobs, higher incomes and quality of life. But not everyone succeeds, and many with little formal education and employable skills end up working in informal sectors, which do not provide a steady income, medical benefits, retirement savings or other fringe benefits. According to news reports, it is estimated that about 63% of the country's 23 million population live in urban areas, compared with just 27% in 1957, the year of independence.

Despite Malaysia's impressive track record in reducing the poverty rate in the country, urban poverty remains a real and pressing problem. To be sure, the poverty rate has declined significantly from 58.7% of the population in 1970 to 37.7% in . 1980, 16.5% in 1990 and 5.1 % in 2002, according to a paper by associate professor Dr Goh Ban Lee from the School of Social Science in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

Even the incidence of urban poverty has charted a similar downtrend, from 24.6% in 1970 to 12.6% in 1980, 7.5% in 1990 and 2% in 2002, which is about 69,600 households, he noted in the paper presented at the National Seminar on Urban Poor and Low Income Families: Towards the Ninth Malaysia Plan. The seminar, held in Kuala Lumpur on April 19, was jointly organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, Institut Sosial Malaysia, USM and Yayasan Strategik Malaysia.

But statistics aside, Goh, like many other participants at the seminar, is of the opinion that the real situation is less rosy, and that many households are struggling to make ends meet despite earning above the official poverty line.

"While statisticians and social scientists are busy trying to come up with a new PLI, most Malaysians already know the existing official figures are clearly not realistic," he said. "Under current prices, it is generally accepted that a household would need at least RM1,000 per month to live adequately. Some would even go as high as RM1,200 per month," he said, citing research by Sulochana Nair.

The Department of Statistics' surveys of monthly expenditure found that the average expenditure per urban household was RMl,943 in 1998/99, about 38% higher than RM1,406 in 1993/94, Goh noted.

Even in the rural areas, surveys found that the average household expenditure was RMl,270 a month in 1998/99, he said.

For the families in Taman Medan, their average monthly income, though sufficient for subsistence, will not be enough to significantly improve their quality of life. "Here, we don't have to pay rent," says one resident. But if her family were to move to a bigger house, with better sanitation facilities and public transport, it would have to fork out a few huindred ringgit for rent, a financial burden she is reluctant to take on.

"What we need to do now is take the next important steps in ensuring that the people who have escaped poverty, never fall back into poverty and indeed can advance socio-economically to join the two million families who comprise the country's middle class," Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said when delivering the keynote address at the seminar. "In Order to do so, We must acknowledge the need for new approaches, ideas and policies to counter worrying trends facing the poor. We have to redouble our efforts in comprehensively improving access to and delivery of anti-poverty initiatives, in a more strategic and targeted manner."

The prime minister noted the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the country. Relative poverty, arising from the uneven distribution of overall gains in income and wealth, is becoming more apparent in Malaysia, he said. "The most apparent problem arising out of relative poverty would perhaps relate to an increasing resentment permeating amongst the have-nots. This could lead to worrying fissures arising across urban communities and potentially even along ethnic lines. We must therefore understand the ramifications of relative poverty and seek to address them."

Abdullah noted that the old approach to address poverty by emphasising economic growth alone may no longer be sufficient, especially in addressing relative poverty. "In recent times, anti-poverty policies and strategies have become more targeted,focusing on developing capacity building frameworks as well as emphasising quality of life indicators," he said.

Decent housing, easy access to healthcare, education and stable jobs were among the measures cited by some of the speakers as necessary to address urban poverty.

In March last year, the Cabinet appointed the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to coordinate efforts among local authorities to address the problem of urban poverty.

Goh of USM is sceptical that such an appointment alone would suffice. "[If] the local authorities are not able to keep the streets and drains clean, how can they be expected to formulate and implement programmes to eradicate urban poverty?" he asked, amid applause from seminar participants.

While it is important that programmes and strategies are formulated, there is a serious need for good governance, equitable town planning strategies and compliance with rules and regulations, Goh said. "Although many government institutions play important roles in the efforts to reduce urban poverty, the most important are the local authorities. They not only provide most of the services that make or break the quality of urban living, but they are also the main agencies to regulate and control land development that determines the accessibility of the poor to work and shelter," he said.

Goh acknowledged that local authorities have played an important role in providing facilities that benefit the poor, such as permits and allocation of stalls for petty traders, low-cost housing, public transport and street lighta. However, the quality of service is hot consistently reliable, he said. Some families who need low-cost housing do not get it and the local authorities have failed to ensure that the living environment of the urban poor is clean, healthy and pleasant, he said, referring to facilities such as garbage collection, piped water and street lights.

"There is, of course, no sinister effort by the local authorities or their officers to work against the poor," Goh said. "The failures to implement their pro-poor policies are part of the overall inefficiency and ineffectiveness of local governments as a whole."

But eradicating urban poverty is not the responsibility of the government alone. The private sector can also pitch in, Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development Datuk G Palanivel said at the seminar.

Employers who would rather hire foreign workers to keep costs low are making the job market difficult for the local urban poor, he said. "Employers should look at employing locals at more competitive salaries, and fringe benefits," he said, adding that this would give the urban poor an opportunity to earn a hetter income and improve their quality of life.

For the families in Taman Medan's longhouses who want the dignity of earning their keep and not living on handouts, better employment conditions and incomes would certainly make a big difference.