3 things you didn’t know DBKL did to help the homeless.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our writers went homeless for three days to write an article about the experience, and one of the concerns he had was being scooped up by the DBKL cuz yeah, they have the power to do that. In fact, we don’t have the… greatest impression of the city council, generally speaking – when DBKL gets mentioned, things like parking summonses, stray dog catchers, and anti-homeless public benches come to mind.

That negative impression was sliiiightly made better when one of our readers, Jiunn, who saw the homeless article, sent us a DM telling us about how DBKL actually has done stuff to help the homeless. No, seriously, it’s true. For instance…

1. They’ve set up multiple homeless shelters around KL

So, some of y’all might know that certain homeless shelters are run by the government, like Anjung Singgah near the Masjid Jamek LRT station, but not many are aware that Rumah Gelandangan, the shelter along Jalan Pahang, is set up and managed by DBKL. While it’s no 5-star hotel, it’s a place for transients to shower, use the bathroom and get some sleep, even if it’s just for a few nights.

During the numerous MCO stretches between 2019 and 2021, the city council also made an effort to convert unoccupied community centers and multipurpose halls into temporary homeless shelters known as Pusat-Pusat Sementara Gelandangan in a few areas in KL, including Titiwangsa and Sentul. That’s not all they did masa MCO, tho…

2. They’ve gave C19 shots to over 300 homeless people

Most of us were fortunate enough to have easy access to C19 cucuks. All we had to do was sign up either online or via MySejahtera for our shots. The people living on the streets weren’t as lucky – many of them don’t even have smart devices, much less internet connectivity. It’s a good thing, then, that DBKL with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGO) kicked off Ops Gelandangan to give as many homeless people health screenings and C19 shots as they could. As of May 2021, 382 of the homeless got their shots done this way.

The thing is, urine tests were done as part of the health screenings, and the homeless people who were tested positive for drugs were handed to the National Anti-Drug Agency. It’s pretty sad, since a lot of homeless people resort to substances to cope with their daily struggles. We’re not entirely sure if they were prosecuted after cuz we couldn’t find any follow-up info on that, but hopefully they were sent to rehab rather than prison or something.

Hey, we did say “hate them less” in the title, not “absolutely adore them”, and to be fair, DBKL was just doing their job. Well, maybe this next one might help redeem DBKL in y’all’s eyes, because…

3. They’ve worked with soup kitchens to feed the needy

When DBKL banned soup kitchens within a 2km radius of Lot 10 in 2014, it sparked widespread outrage, but it seems like they didn’t really do anything to enforce the ban, and at the beginning of 2020, the city hall approached Need to Feed the Need, Kechara, and a number of other NGOs for a collab of a lifetime: they wanted to delve into the soup kitchen “business”. The NGOs would prepare the food and yeet it over to three community centers around Klang Valley where DBKL and Rela officials would, in turn, be distributing said food to those who needed it.

“Why DBKL suddenly so good ah?”

That’s a good question, and there’s an equally good answer for it – at the time, 213 people were living in the aforementioned community centers. There were homeless people in the mix, but also just folks whose finances were affected by the C19 wave. Credit where it’s due, the whole thing was apparently Ismail Sabri’s idea.

Now, how do we feel about DBKL having seen some of the good things they’re capable of doing?

DBKL really isn’t as bad as we first thought, but…

We’ve heard from many of our own family members and friends that they dislike or distrust the city council due to what they themselves have seen or heard, like how cruel the DBKL officials were when they’re rounding up strays, or how the DBKL is intentionally mistreating homeless people in an effort to get rid of them. It doesn’t help that they’ve messed up royally in the past, y’know, getting involved in shady land deals and ignoring the protests of residents near DBKL developments.

Listen, we’re not brown-nosing DBKL here, but a lot of time, they genuinely do things to help the community at large. In fact, they don’t just help people, they’re still doing adoption drives for stray dogs and cats in their pounds.

There seems to be this tendency for them to mess up in the oddest ways possible and tanking their public image, and maybe, just maybe, if they tightened up their operations, did things in a more transparent manner and made more moves to benefit the citizens of KL in more practical ways, all of us wouldn’t have such a grim impression of the historic Dewan Bandaraya.