The Malaysian Insight

ALMOST all the homeless in Kota Kinabalu picked up by the authorities in a sweep will return to the streets.

Such operations being rare in Sabah under the new Warisan government, the homeless are freer than ever to sleep on the streets, the only place they have to go.

The homeless in Kota Kinabalu have tales to tell of lost love, betrayal and abandonment.  

Andiri Ewoh was abandoned by a friend at the Jalan Gaya bus station last year.

The 68-year-old from Ranau had accepted a friend’s offer of work as a security guard.

“The company rejected me due to my age. Without a job, I wanted to go back to my village with him, but he left me alone here.

“He borrowed my mobile phone, saying he wanted to make a phone call and told me to wait for him at this bus stop. He disappeared after that,” Ewoh said at the bus stop where he sleeps.

He said he has no money to call his family back home in Ranau, which is a two-hour drive from Kota Kinabalu. He survives on meals donated by restaurants and sympathetic passers-by.

Ewoh’s story is a common one, told in various versions by other elderly street people, who were brought from their villages to the capital and then abandoned. 

Some left their homes and are ashamed to go back.

Andre James, 41, was jilted by his girlfriend two years ago.

His home in Inobong Penampang is just a 30-minute drive away, but he cannot bear to go back to the villagers’ taunts.

“It’s not that my family kicked me out. It’s the people in my village,” he told The Malaysian Insight. 

James was in and out of jail for most of his teenage and young adult life. He said he mixed with the wrong crowd and was involved in many gang fights.

His longest time behind bars was eight years for murder in one such fight. He also lost a hand to a machete. He was 18.

James said he went home once, but his neighbours and relatives constantly reminded him of the past and used him as example to others.

The only option was to leave, he said.  

So he did. He met and fell in love with a woman and both of them got jobs and rented a flat in Ketiau, Penampang. Life was good.

But the past caught up with him when his girlfriend’s employer came to their flat one day after finding out about his criminal record. The boss advised James’ girlfriend to leave him.

James ended up in jail again after losing his temper and attacking the employer. When he returned to the flat after his release, his girlfriend was gone.

He now begs outside a coffee shop, whose proprietor gives him food and shelter in return for watching the outlet at night.

The Sabah Welfare Department picks up about 40 homeless people in a year sleeping rough in the city. A court order allows the department to hold them for 30 days while it tries to locate their families.

If none is found, the detainees are shipped off to the Desa Bina Diri rehabilitation centre. They are taught such skills as farming and sewing, and released after three years. Because they have nowhere to go, most end up back on the streets.

Only Malaysians aged 18 to 59, however, are admitted into the rehabilitation centre, which opened in April 2013 upon the introduction of the Destitute Persons Act 1997. 

The department’s legal and enforcement chief Roslan Baba said homelessness is “under control” as “90% of the problem involved illegal immigrants”.

Homeless illegal immigrants are sent to temporary detention centres in Menggatal. 

Roslan said begging syndicates are not a problem. Most of the homeless who beg are their own masters. 

Some suffer from mental illness, including dementia, which usually afflicts the elderly. This group of vagrants is sent to a hospital near Bukit Padang. – March 17, 2019.