A street protest that works

G Vinod

 | June 7, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR: About 20 disabled people demonstrated outside Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) this morning in the name of a homeless man and solved his problem in a matter of hours.

The protesters, representing the Independent Living and Training Centre (ILTC), demanded that City Hall provide housing to V Karuppan, a disabled 60-year-old man who has been living in his car for nearly three years because he is too poor to buy a house.

The group was led by ILTC adviser Anthony Thanasayan, president Francis Siva and secretary Gurdip Kaur.

Karuppan, who hails from Selayang, said that he had been living in his old Proton Saga since 2009.

“I work as washroom attendant at the Subang railway station and I have no fixed income,” he said. “On a good day, I can earn about RM20.”

He said that he had applied to City Hall several times since 2009 for a flat on the first floor of the Intan Baiduri Public Housing Scheme (PPR).

“All DBKL gives is empty promises. Sometimes they say I will get it in a week, sometimes in a month but nearly three years have passed and I have not seen my house yet.”

He said his applications were supported by letters from the Welfare Department and the Deputy Minister of Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being, M Saravanan.

‘Is this a caring government?’

He claimed that an aide to Saravanan once told him to purchase his own house while waiting for City Hall to approve his application.

“If I had the money to buy my own house, why would I want to rent a PPR flat? It’s common sense, isn’t it?”

Karuppan lost the use of his legs in childhood as a consequence of polio. His wife, A Pushpavalli, helps him on his job.

Pushpavalli said she had found out that several flat units at Intan Baiduri, including one on the first floor, had been vacant for three years.

She questioned why City Hall was not willing to approve Karuppan’s application. “You make my husband run up and down for a home knowing he is disabled. And you call yourself a caring government?”

Pushpavalli, 49, stays with her sister at Intan Baiduri at night, but the flat is too crowded to accommodate her husband.

“My sister lives with her extended family in the flat,” she said. “I sleep in the hall.”

Thanasayan, who is also a Petaling Jaya City Hall councillor, said he was shocked when he found out how DBKL was treating Karuppanan.

“The way DBKL is treating a disabled man is disgraceful,” he said. “This just shows that it doesn’t care for us.”

Welfare Department taken to task
He demanded that DBKL provide Karuppan a flat by today or place him in a hotel until it could provide him with a flat.

An aide to DBKL’s director-general told the protesters that City Hall’s director for housing, Sukiman Surahman, could not meet them as he was at a meeting at the DBKL office in Kampung Baru.

When they insisted on a meeting, the aide said City Hall would arrange to transport them to Kampung Baru. However, the three ILTC officials decided to go there on their own, taking Karuppan with them.

The meeting lasted 20 minutes, during which, according to Siva, Sukiman issued a letter to Karuppan that offered him a first floor flat at Intan Baiduri.

“He also instructed his officers to turn the unit into a disabled friendly home by building ramps and renovating the toilet,” Siva said, adding that the unit would be ready in two days.

Although happy with the outcome, Siva criticised the Welfare Department for failing to help Karuppan in the first place.

“The Welfare Department should have dealt with this, not an NGO. We might as well close down the department if this is how they are going to work.”