JULY 21 ― Dr Teo Yeoyenn brought to the forefront the other side of coin of Singapore's reality in 2018, in an unconventional bid for academic work to gain public recognition and spark national dialogue. Her book This Is What Inequality Looks Like is a compilation of her essays concerning her work in ethnographic research at the Housing Development Board (HDB) flats.

Dr Teo criticised the general understanding of the urban poor as lazy, incompetent and lacking no hard-working attitudes which have caused them to fail in Singapore's meritocratic system. The idea of "having a big TV” or "not working” is overly derisive.

She criticised herself, too, as a premise of her argument is that the situations and circumstances of the urban poor cannot be viewed from one perspective, as conceptions of poverty must take into account a variety of macro and micro factors. As such, she has identified housing as an important entity which determines the sustainability of everyone’s life.

Urban life in Malaysia, and especially in Kuala Lumpur, shares certain social and economic characteristics with Singapore. Malaysia is moving towards urbanisation. In fact, Malaysia has one of the highest urbanisation rates in East Asia.

This has brought about an increase in the number of urban population from 26.8 per cent in 1970 to 71 per cent in 2010. This figure is expected to increase to 76.6 per cent in 2020 and 88.0 per cent in 2050.

Urbanisation creates a new dilemma that requires a fresh narrative on urban poor. I remember that former Federal Territories minister Khalid Samad once suggested there is a need for a redefinition of "urban poor”. This is because despite numerous social assistance programmes, poverty in the city persists.

Let’s look at pocket statistics before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Kuala Lumpur, out of the nearly 830,000 labour force, 43 per cent workers are categorised of three main jobs (according to Malaysia Standard Classification of Occupations, MASCO). The job types in these three categories include waiters, security guards, toilet cleaners, garbage collectors and support clerks. They are categorised in lowest B40 income bracket ― mostly at 2020’s minimum wage in major cities of RM1,500.

This raises the question ― where do they live? Are there any sufficient affordable rental houses for them in Kuala Lumpur? With the median house price in Kuala Lumpur so far in 2019 at RM500,000 and the average price approaching RM750,000, we can imagine the average rental price of low cost and affordable housing. What are the options for this group of workers while the middle class are also struggling to find affordable shelter?

The existing public housing units in Kuala Lumpur cannot meet the current demand from the second generation residents, let alone to accommodate new applications. Making this worse, those who are no longer eligible to rent in the public housing remain in their rental units.

Over the next 20 years, the government is planning to redevelop its ageing and deteriorating public housing estates. Increasing the number of units through the construction of higher-rise housing is expected to offer more homes and ensure the continuation of affordable rental schemes. The middle and low working class must be given better choices for affordable rental housing until they are ready to make a good decision to own a house.

A former mayor of Kuala Lumpur once reminded us that the current trending of development showing preference of creating "colonies” that intentionally separate areas based on economic class.

Amid our aspiration to reducing inequality, we may end up creating another generation of "urban poor” in Kuala Lumpur.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.