The plight for being eligible for public housing continues with the new government as many residents have overstayed and are currently backed by better social economic reasons.
Hence, it is time to make way for those who deserve living in public housing by checking what type of type of housing loans and properties you are able to afford.
This comes as families who are no longer eligible for public housing in Penang are being evicted as there are many qualified individuals who also need accommodations, reported The Edge and The Star.
“We have 1,800 applicants waiting to fill these units so it is unfair to allow those who don’t qualify to remain in Rifle Range,” said Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow on Wednesday (6 June).
Among the reasons for losing qualification for these subsidized housing is accumulating rental arrears, owning another property, marrying a non-Malaysian, or having a monthly income of over RM500.
He revealed this after seven households were evicted from their public housing in Rifle Range, and held a protest in Komtar on Wednesday.
“These residents no longer meet the criteria for public housing and some of them even have rental arrears so enforcement action has to be taken against them,” Chow explained, adding that they had provided sufficient time for these families to find another place to stay as enforcement action started six months ago.
If the government allowed these ineligible families to remain in Rifle Range, it will be detrimental to the 1,800 people on the waiting list, he told Parti Sosialis Malaysia, which is assisting the evicted households.
Meanwhile, Parti Sosialis Malaysia Rifle Range Coordinator R. Karthiges argued that one of the evicted families have difficulty paying the full amount of owed rent.
“They can’t afford to pay up the full arrears amount as these were owed from their parents’ time so they wanted to discuss ways to pay it in instalments, but the state refused to listen to them.”
The state authorities should also not evict those with foreign spouses as their children are already Malaysians, said Karthiges, adding that they were not able to talk to Housing Development Exco, Jagdeep Singh Deo to tackle this problem.
According to Jagdeep, of the evicted families in Rifle Range, one has overdue arrears, four own other houses and four married foreigners, while two unmarried individuals had continued to stay in the flats after their parents’ death.
Overall, there are 62 applicants still waiting to rent a home in Rifle Range, he added.
Image sourced from Edge Property
This article was edited by the editorial team of PropertyGuru. To contact them about this or other stories email editorialteam@propertyguru.com.my
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