LETTER | Average citizens need good quality, low-cost housing

LETTER | One of the main issues which have affected average Malaysians for a long time is highly priced, unaffordable housing.

The root cause of this is the treatment of housing by our political system and the business class as a highly profitable industry instead of people’s basic rights.

In their collective pursuit for profits, some within our bureaucracy (state officials and government departments), several government-linked companies (GLCs), as well as the developers, have engineered the nation’s housing industry such that it enables them to reap exorbitant profits.

The bureaucracy has established various laws and requirements that only allow the bureaucracy and the developers to be involved in housing construction, instead of the average citizens.

This then enables these players to make profits off the housing market by:

i) The selling of overpriced state lands by the state governments to their respective GLCs or companies owned by those governments to construct housing properties.

ii) The requirement of permits for the process of constructing houses on state land and acquiring building materials for which developers can only purchase from certain state departments and GLCs, thus creating avenues for those departments and companies to profit off building houses.

iii) Developers prefer to construct very high-end housing properties which can only be afforded by the rich and elite class in order to maximise their profits.

iv) The bureaucracy favouring the developers’ greed for profits by easing laws and requirements so that they can build much more high-end properties to maximise their profits, instead of mainly building low-cost housing which is what most people desperately need nowadays.

v) The bureaucracy favouring the elite class by easing laws and requirements so that they can purchase high-end units or properties for speculation purposes, instead of actually inhabiting them.

For the sake of most average Malaysians (B40 and M40) who are not able to afford or rent high-end houses, the government must summon the political will to implement much-needed systemic reforms concerning the housing industry. Some of these reforms measures include:

1. Establishing a state-level housing trust in all states, for which the federal government sets aside funds for constructing good quality, low-cost housing for the B40 and lower half of the M40, without involving private developers and for-profit GLCs.

Essentially, this trust is strictly and solely for providing housing for average citizens as their basic right, instead of treating housing as a profitable industry.

2. Amending laws such as the National Land Code and the Land Acquisition Act to recognise and legalise urban squatters and settlers who’ve occupied the land for more than 20 years, by providing them land ownership at reasonable prices, upgrading their basic surrounding infrastructure and essential services, and providing them with low-interest small loans to make repairs and upgrade their houses.

For those who’ve rented land from private landlords, the money paid to the government for their land ownership can be then topped up by the government and paid to those landlords as a settlement for the acquisition.

3. Taking the provision of first homes for families out of the market, by setting up a non-profit authority to build terrace houses on government land and selling them at just above the price of construction only to Malaysian couples, earning more than RM2,500 monthly, who are seeking to buy their own house.

Later on, these new owners can only sell back those houses to the non-profit authority itself, for them to be subsequently sold to similar eligible families.

For similar families earning below that income level, the government has to provide those first homes at minimal rent.

4. Further expansion of low-cost housing programmes by the government, for example ‘council homes’ and Program Rumah Mesra Rakyat (RMR), so that a greater number of the rural and urban poor are positively impacted.

All these low-cost houses should be of good quality and their prices must be realistic, that is, based on the purchasing power as well as the socioeconomic status of average Malaysians.

For apartment units, the essential services as well as the cleanliness should be responsibly and consistently taken care of by the respective local governments.

The job opportunities for the construction of these housing properties should be prioritised towards Malaysians with the deserved wage level, instead of foreign workers.

Good quality, affordable housing is every individual’s fundamental right. But for far too long, the political system along with the business class have treated such basic, essential needs and services solely as profit-making industries.

Therefore, as a caring and responsible government, it needs to prioritise the needs of average Malaysians by taking holistic measures such as the above in order to effectively solve the highly-priced, unaffordable housing issue in our country.

Such measures will not only ensure housing as well as reduce the financial burden for average Malaysians especially the B40 category, but it will also increase the people’s support for the government.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.