By Hafidz Baharom

Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) is now being accused of displacing homeless people by rounding them up, piling them into lorries and dropping them off at random locations.

The allegation comes from Lalitha Abdullah of the NGO Seed, through a Facebook post detailing events which happened on May 22.

“After having the opportunity to watch a fundraising concert by Seed, our homeless community was picked up in a massive raid in KL. They were herded onto a lorry and driven out of the city. They were told to get off at Rawang and some at Karak highway,” she said in the post.

Lalitha said she was confused by City Hall’s actions.

“Firstly, why drop them off at Rawang and the Karak Highway? Why not drop them off at homeless shelters around the city?

KL Mayor Mohd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz himself had launched a homeless shelter in Medan Tuanku and urged more non-government organisations to make use of it. In fact, another homeless transit centre was opened in February along Jalan Pahang at a cost of RM3 million.

Secondly, who authorises such an action?

Obviously, if an official truck is used to transport the homeless, there must be a paper trail of forms for petrol allowances and claims. Thus, it is safe to say that government and tax money is being used in such an exercise in futility”.

This seems to be the latest strike in Kuala Lumpur’s war against the homeless, after the debacle in 2014 which saw Federal Territory Minister Tengku Adnan Mansor attempt to close down soup kitchens in the city centre where the homeless get free food.

And yet, Adnan and DBKL, in their infinite wisdom, seem to have no beef with lawbreakers, considering their insistence on hosting racing by ‘illegal’ motorcyclists on the streets; nor are they concerned enough to come up with a proactive flood mitigation plan for the city.

While it obviously shows where their priorities lie, there is a need to come up with proper management and a permanent solution for KL’s homeless problem.

Transit centres are a good start to allow the homeless to freshen themselves up, but what is the sustainable endgame here?

Should we be looking at permanent shelters, as well as job opportunities in the so-called Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult or Demeaning (3D) sector? Could that be doubled with a scheme of government-subsidised low-cost housing or even hostels, thus giving them a permanent home?

Such proposals could prove to be sustainable solutions to other issues, namely our dependence on foreign labour.

If a policy were in place to encourage a so-called “Malaysian First” employment model rather than a dependence on foreign labour, it would truly provide the avenue for us to lower the homeless population as well as growing unemployment.

But let us start small. Allow NGOs such as Seed and others to have a sit down with the mayor as well as other interested stakeholders to look at what plans can be put in place to alleviate the predicament of the homeless.

At the same time, put an end to the action of driving them off to the middle of nowhere in the hope that they won’t return. They are human beings. They should not be treated like vermin to be smoked out of commercial areas.

Hafidz Baharom is an FMT reader.

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