KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 — The Federal Territories Ministry has installed cubicles at a temporary shelter for the homeless — open for the duration of the movement control order (MCO) — to ensure that proper social distancing is observed.

Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa posted a video on Twitter showing the authorities installing hundreds of cubicles made of orange fabric with the name of the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) printed on them at the Sentul Perdana Community Centre, one of four temporary shelters that currently houses about 540 of Kuala Lumpur’s homeless.

"Alhamdulillah. My directive to install the cubicles for the homeless is swiftly being done tonight. Praise to God. I will take care of blankets after this,” he tweeted late last night.

 

 

Malay Mail checks last week revealed the residents of the shelter lying on row after row of mattresses laid out on the centre’s parquet flooring. The mattresses were an approximate distance of one metre apart from each other.

The World Health Organisation recommends maintaining at least one metre distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing. When someone coughs or sneezes, they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the Covid-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease.

Beside the Sentul Perdana Community Centre, the other three centres are the Ampang Hilir Multi-Purpose Hall, Setiawangsa Community Centre and Alam Damai Multi-Purpose Hall — all are owned by DBKL and staffed by its officers together with People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA) members.

A general view of the temporary shelter in Pusat Komuniti Sentul Perdana in Kuala Lumpur April 7, 2020. — Picture by Hari Anggara

DBKL said some 541 homeless were housed in two transit and four community centres around the capital under a DBKL mission to track them down and ensure their safety while the MCO is in place.

KL Mayor Datuk Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan said that everyone had undergone Covid-19 testing, and so far, all results have come back negative. At the shelters, each person is allotted a place based on three categories: the healthy; those with a communicable disease, or mental and drug abuse issues; as well as non-citizens.