PETALING JAYA, Jan 8 — Soup kitchen Dapur Jalanan coordinator Abdul Hadi Khalid said money spent by ministries for open houses for the homeless would be better spent on shelters instead.

The Federal Territories Ministry organised a high-tea and open house over Christmas, which saw the homeless given electrical home appliances as gifts.

“Imagine how much was actually spent on these open houses. There are catering costs, event management costs and these handouts, which amount to a large sum of money,” Abdul Hadi said.

“You have to ask how often they hold such events; you have Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali and more.

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“It could easily cover the cost of running five homeless shelters in the city for a year.”

Abdul Hadi said the ministry’s focus is off the mark in terms of tackling vagrancy in the city, claiming the giveaways were just photo opportunities.

“I can speak for Dapur Jalanan in saying we have no problems with celebrating festivities, but there needs to be better management of resources and focus and not just create photo opportunities to prove you are doing something,” he said.

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Giving electrical appliances to the homeless was proof that the ministry is thoughtless in addressing vagrancy issues, claimed The Nasi Lemak Project’s Mastura Mohd Rashid.

“Giving things to the homeless is not very effective in general,” said the founder of the soup kitchen.

“Food may be fine because they might be hungry, but our purpose of distributing food is to communicate and get closer to the homeless community and see how we can help deal with bigger issues they may be facing.”

Mastura shared her thoughts on the matter, saying the ministry was trying to show it is doing something by giving things away.

“It just shows how thoughtless they are on the issue. Electrical home appliances and even money won’t help them overcome their problems.”