GEORGE TOWN: A social activist, criticising “affordable housing” as only for the rich or lottery-winners, has urged the state government to take more effective measures to provide housing to the people.
The activist, Ong Eu Soon, said such measures could include price controls, shared-ownership, caps on rents, and ownership restrictions to curb speculation.
Ong said that current prices meant that only those born to rich families, or lottery-winners, could buy a house in Penang today, and that houses in the Pakatan Rakyat state government’s “affordable housing” scheme were not as “affordable” as claimed.
He said affordable housing should mean that people, including those with low incomes, could buy a basic home and pay off the loan while meeting personal commitments and being able to save comfortably without straining their budgets.
Generally, this meant spending less than 25% of a household budget on housing and less than 45% on transport and housing costs combined.
But Pakatan’s affordable home programme was only affordable to citizens with monthly incomes of at least RM6,000 to RM10,000 or more.
A RM400,000 flat would be affordable only to those with an income of RM10,000 a month, to pay off a 30-year loan, at RM2,600 monthly installments.
A RM300,000 flat would need not less than RM8,000 a month income to pay off RM1,900 monthly installments.
A RM200,000 flat would need at least RM6,000 a month to afford monthly installments of RM1,300.
He said most people would not qualify to buy homes built under the Pakatan state government’s affordable home scheme.
Affordable housing has been a major public issue since the DAP and its allies took power in the 2008 general election, with many Penangites today acknowledging that they could not afford to buy a comfortable family home, compared to the pre-2008 period.
Ong accused the state government of neglecting its statutory duty to provide affordable homes. “In Penang, you need to be young, below the age of 30, and with a lot cash to spare, to buy a home that is affordable to you,” he said.
A prominent local critic, Ong was once assaulted by some members of now banned Penang Volunteer Patrol Squad, which opened the floodgates for heavy criticisms that eventually led to the demise of the unit.
Explaining his proposal on shared ownership, he said it would cater generally to first-time buyers, who did not have enough for a mortgage to buy a property outright.
Instead they could buy a share in a property at a mortgage that was affordable in relation to savings and salaries, and raise a low-interest equity loan for the remaining portion.
He said such loans could be funded jointly by the government and a consortium of housing developers or housing associations involved in the scheme.
Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/04/19/affordable-housing-only-for-lottery-winners/
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