rich rent house to poor is helping them?

UPDATED 14.4.04, 0115hrs: latest news from malaysiakini – rich robbing the poor of housing, says critics.
(malaysiakini site seems to be down at this moment, so can’t link to its site, instead link to mgg pillai’s website).

selangor MB, toyol… er… i mean toyo… or to be precise datuk seri dr mohamad khir toyo. announced that the selangor government will allow rich people to buy low-cost houses and then let these rich people rent the houses to the poor. according to him, this plan, apart from helping the poor will also help housing developers reduce losses. wow. great. 2-in-1.

it used to be that low-cost houses in the state that cost between RM35,000 and RM42,000 will be sold to only those who earn less than RM1500 a month. and now the MB wants these low cost houses to be available to anyone regardless of how much they earn. he wants the rich to buy the low cost house, then rent it out to the poor. hmm… good idea… IF the rich will really want to do a good deed… buy it and rent it out cheap to the poor… but what if they exploit the poor and raised up the rent? and are we so sure the rich willl buy the low cost houses and rent it to the poor? who knows they might buy it for their mistress to stay. haha. don’t laugh. could be true. after all, we all know many rich men do keep mistresses.

to allay my fear of the rich charging the poor high rent, the MB said that the state will monitor the situation so “so that the rich will not take advantage of the poor”. and also to monitor that the rich will not buy the low cost houses and use them as investment. hmm… easier said than done. we all know how poor the gomen is at upkeeping and enforcement…. and of course also monitoring. well, the gomen might monitor the rich maybe only in the beginning but later on, the ‘tidak apa’ attitude will set in and they will stop monitoring, and the rich will laugh all the way to the bank.

methinks this is not a good idea. why rope in the public…. the rich public to help help the poor? if the gomen is sincere enough to help the poor, perhaps they should lower the cost of the houses a little or make it easier for the poor to apply for such low cost houses (flats actually).

i remember long long ago, my mother had been applying for a low cost house for decades and did not get anything. all we get all the time was “we are looking into it”. at that time when my mother applied, we, her children were not working yet, and of course my mum’s pay was less than RM1000. after 20 years my mum still did not hear anything about the application. then suddenly out of the blue a letter came saying her children were already working and as all combined pay was over RM1500 so she was not eligible for the low cost house. hmph!! can you imagine that??

anyway, the real estate and housing developers association (rehda) is not in favour of the MB’s idea as. read the article and find out why.