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A homeless person is defined into three categories. In general it is said about an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is a publicly supervised or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill); an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to maintain, a regular, safe, and adequate shelter.
Homeless is defined as people who have nowhere to live, and who often live on the streets (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2008). Almost all countries in the world are facing this phenomenon. However, in Asia there is only one percent of people who are homeless (The U.S. Conference of Mayor, 2001). Do you think people in Malaysia are also homelessness? A 61 year old man, Lim Tian Swee who was mistaken for a beggar had confessed that he was homeless for about nine months and habitually napped at the Pasar Seni LRT Station with other hundreds of people there (Star Newspaper, January 7, 2008). This shows that Malaysians are also experiencing this problem. Unfortunately, it appears that Malaysia government has failed to acknowledge a clear statistic on the numbers of homeless people. In recent years its nature and composition has changed significantly with an increase in the numbers of persons experiencing homelessness. Why do you think these people are having their sleep on the streets? According to the statistics, the number of homeless people in Malaysia is increasing due to several reasons, which are poverty, unaffordability of housing and running away from problems.
The main reason people in Malaysia are homeless because they are facing poverty in their life. Poverty happens when a family suffers negative financial changes due to poor health, unemployment, and other temporary events. For example, one of a member in a low-income family fights for a serious illness and he cannot afford to pay for the medicine cost. Therefore, he has to find a job as the alternative to earn money to cure the illness. Unfortunately, he fails for the job recruitment because of his disability. The loss of job results him in loss of accommodation because of insufficient funding to acquire shelter. As the result, he may start a downward spiral thus it will lead him into the homelessness.
Housing is a basic human need, yet the statis
tics of United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2005 notes that, an estimated 100 million people -one-quarter of the world's population- live without shelter or in unhealthy and unacceptable conditions. Over 100 million people around the world have no shelter whatsoever. The health consequences of this level of homelessness are profound. The Action Aid in 2003 had found out that there were 78 million homeless people in India alone. CRY(Child Relief and You) in 2006 estimated that there are 11 million homeless children live on the street. The statistics are grim. What is worse is that very little is known of what it means to be part of such horrific numbers.
