Homeless in Kuala Lumpur: A Way Out of Street

The design thesis studio is a continuation of the dissertation done previously. The dissertation with the same title was done to study the effectiveness of the current homeless initiative in Malaysia and to compare them with other countries. Below is a seminar poster that is done a part of the dissertation.

It is planned that the conclusion of the research done will the foundation of the upcoming design thesis project. The aim of the design thesis is offering an effective initiative programme for the Kuala Lumpur homeless community to come out of homelessness, which will eventually reduce the number of the street sleeper in the city centre significantly.

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Dissertation Conclusion

As shown in the conceptual framework below, it is concluded that the first step of effective homeless intervention should start at categorising the homeless. This can be done through detail documentation of the participant. Next step is to match up suitable programmes depending on their specific categories. These programmes should provide a solution for shelter, their income as well as health and mental support. Therefore, by following this formula, it is hoped that the population homeless in the street of Kuala Lumpur can be reduced significantly.

It is well understood that in order to have effective policies and programmes for the homeless, it is critical to have a clear understanding of the definition of homelessness (Minnery and Greenhalgh, 2007). In Malaysia, the policy-makers still did not have an official definition of homeless yet. Thus, make the initiative and programs launch mostly targeting the general community of the homeless while disregarding the minority sub-group of the destitute people. This also makes the programmes and strategies made barely on the surface and ineffective. The lack of understanding of the root problem also making it complicated for the relevant agencies to shape the suitable programs that can tackle the roots of the homeless problem. By knowing the cause of homeless like because of changing labour market, poverty, the housing issue, nature of the welfare state or other causes are crucial for the issue to be addressed effectively.