No Home For Homeless?

A homeless man taking an afternoon nap

KUALA LUMPUR – The heart of the city , where the rumble , mumble , hustle and bustle begins as soon as dawn breaks with Malaysians jostled through the crowded city to get to work and the busyness goes on till twilight. When night falls , scores of homeless people take over the parks , pavements , corridors of shops and even the turning areas in Kuala Lumpur or more specifically , Masjid Jamek into their home for the night. These homeless in the capital city are not just jobless people or mentally challenged ones . In fact , many of them hold jobs during the day. However , the do not make enough money to rent houses or rooms to stay and find it easier to make ends meet by living in the streets. 

Contrary to the popular belief of some, the homeless people of today aren’t all homeless because they’re lazy or refuse to find a job. They come from all races and religion. A good number of them are educated and speak fluent English! All of them probably had lives like you and I at one point years ago. What they did have that we didn’t though… was just merely bad luck.

To date , there are no exact figures to determine the number of homeless people in the country as not many organizations are not aware of them . When we visited one of the most popular area which is opposite Petaling Street and Menara Cahaya Suria in Jalan Pudu , KL , the area has more than 100 people sleeping on the streets even during the day. 

Prominent landmarks in the city like KLCC , KL Tower and shopping malls reflect our nation’s development , but behind these lights and luxuries , lying in the shadows under the sky are the homeless. 

Why are homeless people here? From the geographical point of view, there are small lanes, lots of pavements to sleep in, train stations, and there are also roads which are very quite at night around the city. These make them easier to stay in since they are all in need of shelter. 

As from the political point of view, Tun Mahathir has once said that Malaysia is a country which is highly developed and thus these homeless people think they can get jobs easily, but some unfortunate events made them to end up being homeless. On the other hand, there are also social problems which disallow them to return to their homes. The social problems among the family members, friends or people around the place they used to stay in. Some of them also come from village areas with hopes of seeking jobs and when they do not get the chance to get any jobs, they are mostly forced to be homeless since they become lack of money. There are still many other reasons for them for being homeless.

Some of them, because of their pride, they no longer want to be in touch with their past and decides to stay on the streets and some do not have any relatives or family members to take care of them. From the many reasons for them to end up being homeless, one of the greatest reasons would be the social problems. When people become isolated or disregarded from a certain group of people that they want to be involved, included or belonged to in, they tend to become depressed. These depressions lead to create social problems which no longer make these people to feel happy about their lives, loss of hope and sense of belonging from the people surrounding them. 

Homeless people impact a community in a number of different ways. Homeless people recently have been denoted as a public nuisance. In the area of Masjid Jamek where several colleges are located , a number of students have complained about the homeless going around, disturbing people around them. There were also a number of mugging cases happening around Masjid Jamek. One of the students of a college nearby when asked said that he was mugged twice in the same area at night when he was returning home from college after evening classes. All his belongings including identity card and driving license were taken from him causing him to be traumatized . 

There is also pollution caused by these homeless people. Since most of them treat public places such as small lanes, pavements and corners as their “home”, they also excrete feces and urinate all over the place. This in turn would cause unpleasant smell and sight to the people passing by. Such behaviors are often displayed in public places. Indirectly, it creates a negative image towards the city of Kuala Lumpur as the city is a place of tourist attraction.

There are a few solutions that we can come up with to reduce the number of homeless people . First of all, more job opportunities should be created for the homeless. According to an online article, a registration counter is open at Masjid India on Tuesdays from 9pm to midnight while at Puduraya, the counter is open on Thursdays from 9pm to 1am set up by the Kuala Lumpur Labor Department to help them look for jobs. Homeless people should look out for these kinds of things in order to improve their lives. 

Other than that , not all homeless people are poor; they just don’t have a place to stay or sleep at night. Some people have day jobs and can even speak English. There’s a man living on the bridge near Ampang Park Mall and people who cross the bridge everyday can see that his meals consist of McDonald's. This just proves that some people sleep on the streets not because they are poor or mentally unstable, they just can’t afford to buy or rent a place. centres so that they have a roof over their heads when night falls. 

Making a campaign to bring awareness to the public about people who are less fortunate than them and on how to help homeless people can be helpful as well. There are hotlines in Malaysia where you can call in case you see a homeless person. They’ll come and get the homeless person to give a job or a place to stay if he’s well enough. If they are not mentally stable, they’ll take him or her to the mental hospital. 

Malaysia, specifically Kuala Lumpur is one of the most advanced cities on its region. Unfortunately the reputation of this city is facing a dramatic deterioration because of homeless people’s phenomena. Traditionally, there is always someone to be blamed. Government generally blames the society for being careless and helpless by providing valid information about locations of homeless people. In the same time society blames the government for not taking actions toward homeless people phenomena. Both government and society should stand shoulder to shoulder to solve this problem. 

The negative effects of not taking this problem seriously or even ignore it most of the time would include various forms of tourism as well as other aspects such as security. Big city life blind our foresight, we hardly want to think of those who spend their whole nights on the side of the roads without any thing to protect them from heavy rains, hot nights and human monsters. We need to take out the sense of city logic and look seriously at homeless people, try to feel them and understand their situation. They are facing a really hard time being in such situation, prove is shown on their faces. Facing the cruelty of life and people is really hard. Solution for homeless people can be found only if we put ourselves in their shoes.