Hunger on the streets worsens as lockdowns hit home

With extended partial lockdowns and movement restrictions nationwide, more and more people, especially from the lower-income group, are on the verge of extreme poverty in the urban areas.

(FMT) – Unemployment among heads of low-income urban families in Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost flats has doubled, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report, and one in three adults in these homes remain unemployed.

More are going to the streets to survive, as they are unable to pay for roofs over their heads, and food is getting expensive, too.

There has been a drastic increase of recipients in need of food aid, says Mohd Syazwan from food bank NGO the Lost Food Project, adding that they had to expand their food waste collection and redistribution operations over the past year.

“We felt the need to expand our services,” he told FMT.

Last year alone, he said, the food bank collected about 34,000kg of baked goods, compared to only 3,000kg the year before.

Food security for the urban poor has been an issue even before the pandemic, as seen in various reports from institutions such as the World Bank, Bank Negara, and Unicef, but the pandemic has worsened matters, he said.

“It is not just access to food but also access to quality, nutritious food. The situation is a lot harder for them now.

“We saw this all throughout last year, even during the first week of the movement control order (MCO) in March. We received a lot of distress calls from people and NGOs who needed a lot of help,” he said.

Despite the loosening of movement restrictions, a lot of socioeconomic limitations plaguing the B40 communities seem to have been carried forward during this second round of MCO (MCO 2.0).

Before the pandemic, they were about 50 charities with specific B40 communities in public housing projects (PPR) in Lembah Pantai and Gombak registered under their food bank programme.

Last year, this increased to about 60 to 70 charities, with their beneficiary base expanding to other places in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor such as Setiawangsa, Klang and Petaling Jaya.

“There were a lot more people out there that we had to reach out to during this period.

“We also received a lot of support from the public and corporates during this time, so it allowed us to expand our services to other areas, even in Sabah.”

He said there was also an increase in restaurants and bakeries wanting to provide food during this time.

He said that throughout 2020, they received around 11.5 tonnes of cooked meals from the surplus at restaurants, distributed to thousands of their recipients.

In total, Syazwan said the food bank collected, or rescued, over 400,000kg of food items – equivalent to over one million meals, all distributed for free.

“I think the restaurants and businesses see it as a situation where they can chime in and help, and not waste their excess,” he said.

The organisation of about 250 active volunteers would pick up cooked or baked unsold or excess food from restaurants and bakeries to send them to the registered charities, local NGOs and even MPs in various constituencies.

They also received fresh and dry food items in bulk, such as vegetables and oatmeal, collected on an ad hoc basis from supermarkets, wholesalers and others.

Meanwhile, dietician and head of Centre for Population Health, Universiti Malaya, Dr Hazreen Abdul Majid said there was a general reduction of food waste coming from restaurants in particular over the last year.

The MCO he said served as a silver lining in encouraging restaurants and establishments to avoid oversupplying food. “This could be seen as a learning curve for both restaurants and consumers.”