- 4 months ago
Why do young Malaysians face racial discrimination when trying to rent a home? Who gets excluded and why? Architects of Diversity’s Jason Wee and SOCDEM Malaysia’s Kusaaliny Mahendran explore systemic bias, legal gaps, and lived experiences shaping Malaysia’s rental landscape.
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00:00Hello and welcome to It's About Youth. I'm your host Fahna Sheh. Now, non-Malays only or no
00:13Indians, that's the phrase that too many young Malaysians still see when trying to, still hear
00:18when trying to rent at homes. Now, today we're talking about racial discrimination in the rental
00:23market, how it affects youth, why it persists and what can be done to change it. Joining me are two
00:29guests, Kusali Limahindran, PJ City Councilwoman and co-founder of Sockdine Malaysia, as well
00:35as Jason Wee, Executive Director of Architects of Diversity. Thank you so much for joining
00:39me, you guys. Thanks for having us. We want to talk about the root causes or let's paint
00:45a landscape first of what's going on here in the rental market, especially those that are
00:50affecting youths, right? Can you share some common, the phrases just now, right, that I
00:55used, can you share some of the common forms of racial discrimination renters, especially
00:59young ones experience in Malaysia. Let's start with you, Michelle.
01:04Well, so our office when, you know, when we conduct service night have received like many
01:09complaints from many students trying to rent saying that, you know, there's a few stages
01:13of discrimination that happens. So stage one is, you know, you enquire is this room like
01:17available for viewing and then that's the first line of racial discrimination because, you
01:22know, the first thing you get is like a profile thing to fill up name, age, race is always
01:26like number three or number four on the thing and then there's like what do you do, are
01:29you student, are you working, where are you working? So there's like a huge form to fill
01:33up. And after that point, once people fill up the form truthfully, most of the time they
01:39are frozen, there's no more reply from the agents because, you know, it doesn't fit the
01:42criteria or, you know, they're trying to find their landlord, a perfect tenant who is, you
01:46know, the right skin colour or something that the landlords prefer. And then there's a second
01:51stage of discrimination where even if the viewing happens and let's say there's three people
01:54who's interested in the room, the person who may not get it may be the Indian people and
02:00instead of the Chinese person in the room or the Malay person in the room. So it happens
02:04at several stages and this also means that there's no equitable access to housing for
02:10people in the city in the Klang Valley, not just in the Klang Valley but maybe even in
02:13Penang and other places around the country.
02:15So maybe, I guess just to add, right, in terms of demography, obviously the primary group that's
02:23impacted and this is shown by both testimonials we've received as well as surveys we've conducted,
02:28right, is that the most common form of discrimination is no Indians in racial ads. And this is especially
02:34true in exactly what Kusha mentioned, in rooms, especially lower value units. But also if you
02:40also look at different smaller towns outside of the Klang Valley, right, sometimes you will also
02:45encounter Malay Muslim only units where even Chinese individuals living in smaller Malay majority towns
02:52might face difficulties in getting units. But I think the most prevalent one is that we found is
02:58Chinese only, especially given the, you know, the legacy of cities where in colonial times the majority
03:05of property owners in Malaysia, in cities, are primarily Chinese Malaysians, right. And so who are
03:11the landlords in this case? And oftentimes the ads we see is either Chinese only or no Indians and
03:19this is really like one of the main concerns in primarily city centres in Klang Valley.
03:23Right, so I guess that that draws me to my next question which is how widespread it is. So is it
03:28primarily focused in Klang Valley or does it happen anywhere else as well? Is it primarily just
03:35mostly rooms that are youth, you know, mostly youth that are attracting to it? Or is it other houses
03:42or other kind of units? Do you mind painting a bit more of it? And also why does it happen? So what keeps
03:49it alive here in Malaysia, this form of racial discrimination? Yeah, maybe I'll add and then
03:54pass it to Kusha. So I think first we don't have good numbers on this just because we don't have a
03:59centralized database of rentals. But based on the numbers that we do have, we know that at least
04:04racially, around two in five Indian Malaysians experience rental discrimination, right? And one in
04:10ten for non-Indian citizens generally. And you're right that at least based on our data, the rate of
04:17problems or discrimination we've in Klang Valley and city centers are higher because more people rent
04:24in city centers anyway. I mean city centers, especially the Klang Valley are places where
04:28people from outside of Malaysia, outside of, you know, in smaller towns move for economic and job
04:33opportunities, right? Hence needing that place for housing. And so it is by nature an issue with
04:40for individuals who don't have capital locally, but more importantly also people who are starting
04:46off at an economically more disadvantaged position. Yeah. Yeah. So a large demographic is this is youth,
04:54right? Yes, I agree. I think it's youth. So let's just paint a picture. I'm also from Epo. So when I
04:59came to KL, you know, to study in Sungai Long, I also needed to look for rooms to rent. And so
05:03it didn't happen to me as much, but it still definitely did, you know, like out of ten people
05:09that you text, maybe like seven people freeze you out, but still at least thank God three people
05:13texted me back so that, you know, I got my first like room thing sorted, but it was definitely
05:17something that was apparent. And because I was in Utah and I'm surrounded by, you know, my Chinese
05:21friends who I love and who have helped me, you know, in the future and even now, like the rental
05:25units that I have, sometimes I get them to help me, like help me to text agents so that, you know,
05:29they cannot say the rooms not available. So once they say like, okay, you can come for the viewing
05:34on the 19th and suddenly me, like I show up with my Chinese friend and then it's available for viewing
05:38compared to like if I texted by myself. So these are like personal experience that I've experienced,
05:42but I know that it's not an isolated incident. And when I speak to other people in my community
05:47of, you know, the same brown skin color, they face the same thing. Yeah. I mean, we've seen the news
05:52and we've, there's, there's a Facebook groups, you know, attacking, tackling this issue as well. So it's not,
05:58it's not anything new and it has been happening for quite some time as well. Yeah. And I think
06:03there was a news piece, right, where Kadazan man from Sabah was looking for a room and, and this
06:08conversation he posted on, on Twitter, I think, was that they asked for his race and he said Kadazan.
06:16And the agent actually replied, oh, sorry, we only want locals thinking that the, the agent not knowing
06:21that Kadazan is a race in Malaysia. And I think that really goes to show the, the level of ignorance
06:26and the really bubble property bubble that we see in, in not, not economic bubble, but in a really
06:33social bubble that we see among property agents in Malaysia. Right. Yeah. So we tried to like look
06:38past this discrimination, right? Because like the fear has to come from somewhere. There is a very
06:43like strong fear embedded and it, it could be because, you know, they've had experiences in the past with
06:48Indian people and they, they have, you know, maybe lost a huge amount of rental income or even property
06:54damage that they have faced. And we tried to, you know, put some sincerity, kindness, hoping that if
06:59we solve the problem of like this loss of income, we can eventually overcome the racial discrimination
07:05if this is the root cause of racial discrimination. So that's what AOD has done together with Son Pham.
07:10Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's a very optimistic view. That's very optimistic, right? I think generally,
07:16like based on the landlords we've spoken to, quite a number are, come from a place of like insecurity and
07:20vulnerability, right? Because we don't have the residential tenancy act and therefore the set of
07:25laws, it's really a patchwork right now, um, that constitute what rights and landlords and tenants
07:31have. Uh, and so it's a very tenuous and vulnerable position. Uh, I think, I think the optimistic and
07:37perhaps if we solve this, then, you know, racial discrimination will decrease, but some of the
07:41landlords that I've also, we've also spoken to are, you know, um, downright prejudice, right? Um,
07:46individuals who either form their opinions based on news or based on word of mouth. And they, they think,
07:54you know, the, the line that we, I commonly hear is, I'm not racist. I just have racial preferences. Uh,
08:00but in reality, that, that's one in the same thing, right? When we judge, uh, one individual based on
08:05the reputation of a whole group, that is definitionally racism. Right. I mean, uh, not saying I support this,
08:13but let's just play the devil's advocate. Uh, putting, putting yourself in a landlord's, um,
08:18shoes, for example, do you think when it comes down to it, you know, you, you have this asset that
08:24you also want to protect and, and to a certain extent, can we say that, um, you know, are they
08:31aware of this kind of harm that they cause when it comes to deciding who gets to be in their property?
08:37Or is it more like, it's a personal preference? Like I, it's my asset. I can decide who I want to
08:42stay in it. Right. So, so where is the line? How do you, how do we balance that if we put ourselves
08:47in a landlord perspective? Right. So from a landlord perspective, if the protection of the asset is
08:54the priority, that's why, so in Malaysia, we have two kinds of tribunal. We have the strata tribunal.
08:59That means like in your condo management life, you have a dispute and, you know, because we're talking
09:04about we want to protect our asset, right? That means you're afraid that something's going to
09:07happen to it and you're going to have a loss of income from it and you're not going to be able
09:11to recover this income. Hiring a lawyer to go after your tenant might be too expensive and you may
09:16end up spending on the lawyer much more than recovering any amount of property damage or property
09:21loss. So what we are trying to introduce the tribunal system is it exists in Malaysia for two things,
09:26the sexual harassment tribunal and the strata tribunal. The strata tribunal exists for like condo
09:31management and JMBs if they have a dispute with the tenants and the people who pay their maintenance
09:36fees of like who should spend the money where, you file in a case, it's 100 ringgit, it gets hurt
09:40within a few months, nobody needs a lawyer but the decision of the tribunal is a court order,
09:45equivalent decision and it's the same thing for the sexual harassment tribunal. This means you've
09:49lowered the barrier of legal access for people to dispute this loss of anything. The tribunal can
09:56order that if a tenant has caused damage to your property, then the tenant has to pay how much
10:02to, you know, relieve you of this thing. So if you lose, if you have an avenue that you know you can
10:08go ahead to protect, the optimist in me is likely to think that you will be less racist because of it.
10:15Yeah, but I'm guessing as well, you know, landlords might not want to go through this tribunal and go
10:23through the hassle of, it's easier to be racist, it's easier, it's easier to, you know, prevent rather
10:31than to cure it, right? Yeah, I think for me, the argument that I think hasn't been really brought up
10:36is that at the point you're putting your private property on the market, it ceases to become just
10:43your property because you are creating a market, right? If you rent out your property, you can claim tax
10:50benefits from that because it counts as a business revenue, right? It's not like you can sell any form
10:55of food in Malaysia, there are standards, safety standards to be set, and any form of product,
11:01right? There is no true free market in Malaysia because we acknowledge that we have to protect
11:06the consumer as well, and so you can't just sell harmful substances saying that this is a
11:11person one-on-one relationship, right? Because there are asymmetries of power, and we're at the point
11:16at which individuals, renters, rely on this market to have housing, right? This is a fundamental
11:24need of life. It's not like I'm trying to buy a piece of clothing, you know, a fashion brand.
11:30It is a fundamental place where, yeah, it's shelter, right? It informs everything, and so for you to say
11:36that this is my property, and you know, the government shouldn't get involved, well, the government really is
11:41involved in many ways, right? It's regulating whether or not you can't get it stamped. Yeah, you have to
11:46get it stamped. You can't put out the number of rooms, certain number of rooms, right? And at the
11:50point of which you expect the government to come in when there are disputes, therefore the government
11:54is already supporting you in making sure that your rights are protected. So in many ways, at the point
12:01of which you have a market, then it also needs to be equal amount of protections for consumers as well,
12:07which in this particular case are tenants, and tenants of particularly vulnerable communities.
12:14I think a lot of people don't see it the way you guys do, and I think that's the problem, right?
12:18That's the problem we're trying to address. We're trying to sort of lay out the facts and lay out the
12:23kind of solution that can be simple or rather can be a bit direct, but it's a bit hard for people to get on,
12:31especially when profits are involved or when protecting assets are involved. We want to get a bit deeper
12:38into some of the solutions and some of the legal protections, if there's any, and talk about the
12:43way forward. But let's go for a quick break first.
13:01Hello and welcome back to It's About Youth. I'm your host, Fahna She. Today we are talking about
13:05rental racial discrimination and other risks that are facing the rental community. Here with us is
13:11Jason and as well as Kusha to talk about this. In the first half, we talked about some of the
13:17common forms of racial discrimination faced by renters, especially among youth, and we talked
13:22about some of the root causes or factors that are causing it. Let's talk a bit about some of the
13:28solutions or available solutions here. Talking about now going to the renter side, are there any legal
13:35protections or safeguards when it comes to renters who are facing this kind of discrimination or other
13:42people just okay with it, like you know, to help with it? Let's go, Kusha. So, from my understanding
13:49of what the rental market now currently is, there are properties listed all over. There's Facebook,
13:54there's all kind of websites, Property Guru, iProperty. Some of them have like, you know, you cannot be
14:00racially discriminative, but some of them don't. Some of them even let you pick out like, you know,
14:04the racial preferences. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, so you, the property just says on the ad,
14:09Chinese, Chinese Muslim or you know, whatever that it says on the ad. And then, yeah, so the properties
14:15get listed, people reach out and there's a willing buyer, willing seller situation. So, you come up with
14:20an agreement, your tenant agrees with the agreement that you come up with, both of you, there's no like,
14:24standard agreement or anything throughout the country. So, as long as you both agree on something,
14:29fine. Yeah, you sign and then you have to get it stamped. So, the only way it's regulated now is
14:33through the stamping of the tenancy agreement, which also many people don't. Jason, is your
14:38agreement stamped? Uh, no. I don't have an agreement for a few years. Why don't we just call you out on
14:46national TV? Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just, just to answer your question, I think the short
14:53answer is really no, right? Yeah. I mean, I think the stamping is just to ensure that contracts are
14:59valid, right? Valid. If it goes to court, then it goes to court. Um, but some people argue the
15:04federal constitution has article eight for non-discrimination, but unfortunately that only
15:08applies to the government treating you. Uh, in terms of what person to person, citizen to citizen,
15:14there simply is no, uh, discrimination protection at the moment. Um, and that means that, uh, yeah,
15:20that there is no enforcement mechanism. There is no good data on this as well, simply because there
15:27is no law surrounding it. So, so it's a compounded problem, right? So racial discrimination in rental
15:32tenancies, it's a, also a larger problem of the really unregulated rental market as a whole. Uh,
15:38and just on the law bit, right? So in 2019, uh, then, uh, minister of KPKT, Zuraida, um, did float the
15:47Residential Tenancy Act as part of the national housing policy 2018 to 2025. It was a legitimate,
15:53it was a listed strategy. Uh, and that's, this is all the way in 2019 where it's also floated, uh, racial
15:59discrimination protections. Uh, the year is 2025 and, you know, we've seen it, uh, announced again,
16:04we're still studying it, drafting it from 2022, 2023, and now 2025, uh, but we still just have not
16:11seen, uh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and as well, it is a bit concerning if the government does take out
16:18plans to even include the racial discrimination clause in the Residential Tenancy Act. Right.
16:24But if you look at it, you know, simply, right, why is it, why is it so difficult to sort of address
16:30this or to regulate this outlaw racial preference in rental community? Um, is it a, is there a legal
16:37loophole or is it just a lack of enforcement or is it, you know, something else like how, you know,
16:43if I'm being discriminated against what avenue do I have or, or how can I move forward? Do I just not
16:50stay? Do I just not find houses? How does it work? So this is exactly the helpless situations that many
16:56people and many, many young people who don't have the capital to, you know, go after this kind of big
17:00landlords who discriminate against them and that's why the proposal of the tribunal where there's a
17:05very low entry fee, there's a fixed time, like, you know, you get your decision within a month,
17:09a month and a half and the tribunal will govern based on the act and based on the law and the
17:14tribunal will make a decision case by case because not every case is a discrimination case.
17:18Sometimes it's just, you know, maybe you've been a tenant for a year, the landlord now wants to
17:22kick you out because you never paid your rent on time and then maybe you happen to be Indian,
17:26the landlord happened to be Chinese but it's also not fair to him that your rent was not on time,
17:30he had to chase you for it, the emotional work behind, you know, the investment behind
17:34procuring back what he expects to get from the property, it's also not fair to him, the loss of
17:38income. So when there's a, there's a situation where there's a party that will freely rule
17:44with a low entry point and a low entry fee makes it fairer for both people, both the landlord and
17:50the tenant because it's so unfair to the landlord if he has a bad tenant, but it's also unfair to
17:54the tenant to never get a chance to show if there'll be a good tenant or a bad tenant.
17:58So I think that's the apple right where we are incentivizing and then I think the stick is to
18:04ban it, but obviously we know that banning racial discrimination, even in the most developed
18:08countries, it doesn't work 100% of the time right and I don't think that's the argument at all like
18:13there is going to be more importantly a deterrent for the people who are in power. Basically one is
18:20landlords and the other I think choke point here is agents. Most people that are facilitating this
18:27racism is really the agents. Sometimes we've heard stories that the landlords don't even have
18:32references and the agents are the one enacting it. I have a friend who's actually an Indian landlord
18:38and then he, the agent told the Indian landlord, don't worry we'll find you a good Chinese tenant
18:43because they are good pay masses in the period of time. The Indian landlord is like what?
18:47Right, they also know. Yeah so you know we also have to regulate practices like this, the agent should
18:53present all requests that are made to them and not block out requests at their level.
18:57Yeah so I think it's yeah correct it's it's both property agencies and agents so I'm looking at all
19:03the property agencies watching this right now. I think websites are also important right as
19:07Kusha mentioned so like Property Guru they're actively campaigning against it right there they have this
19:12everyone welcome campaign that's going on but iB Lake is actively facilitating it right if you go to iB Lake
19:19right now you you click on search a room you can actively list uh your room based on what races you're open to
19:27and I think that really just sends a really bad norm to both agents and landlords alike.
19:32But it does warm my heart once in a while when we see like everyone welcome and I'm like yeah come
19:36let's do that you know but but but yes iB Lake still very bad. I mean it's it's very normalized and
19:42people are okay with it that's why people do it that's that's how norm you know generates over time
19:48right people are okay with it and just status quo not no harm done right for a lot of people. It's more
19:54like the harm done is not recognized because for example like if I'm a student who's looking to
19:58you know study in KL with whatever cost and then I have a date to find my property if I don't manage
20:03to find anywhere to stay how will I come to study like how will I do anything like if even if I get
20:07a job opportunity if I can't find a place to stay then how will I go to the job and ever come out of
20:12that that like you know lower income level and rental is absolutely important not just for the lower
20:18income but even the middle class owning a property is becoming much and much more expensive.
20:22right if I can draw a parallel if you remember the case earlier this year of the jagung seller
20:27that didn't want to sell their corn to Indians and you know the whole country was in an uproar right
20:33that there was blatant uh clearly discrimination so I think the public can recognize that that is
20:41wrong yes right when you deny a service or product to a particular group we know that's wrong but because
20:47when it comes to rental properties that it's been so normalized that we we don't see that as the
20:52same thing you know if you have the meme right and what's the difference is actually the same
20:56picture yeah when you are denying a particular group based on your stereotypes and prejudice because
21:00of them yeah definitely I agree right so if you look at steps to combat this I understand you guys are
21:07part of the fair rental campaign um and there's also other risks as well that are facing the rental
21:13community um so talk to me a little bit about you know fair rental campaign and what it addresses other than
21:21racial discrimination I understand the tribunal is also I think part of it as well um but yeah talk
21:26to me a little bit about the solution what steps can be taken to combat some of this risk that are
21:31facing rental community especially among youths yeah so I think what the other part um so mainly we've
21:38been discussing about the entry point and during the tenancy right so why this is the tribunals is
21:43really important uh a lot of the claims now happen in small claims court uh but the issue with that
21:48it's mainly monetary in nature compensation right uh but sometimes uh a lot of our friends and myself
21:54that the the beef we have with uh with our landlords sometimes isn't monetary right it's you want your
21:59landlord to fix something right you want your landlord to um you know return your deposit right and and these
22:06are things that sometimes are non-monetary in action so that's why we need a specific tribunal the other
22:11parts are about exit as well we've also heard stories of youth um being kicked out on a moment's notice
22:18yeah uh and and that is simply against any form of international law uh and human rights practices
22:24right where the right to housing means also having fair notice for eviction right um that the landlord
22:30just cannot kick you out within a two-week notice it needs to be at least in our opinion two months
22:35yeah uh so we also look internationally right because if you're proposing something we want to see like
22:40how how is the rest of the world dealing yes because it's not a malaysian yeah it's not a malaysian
22:44problem that we have a huge rental market that's unregulated so i think new zealand did it the best
22:49and you we can all actually google it i'm going to put a shout out instead of me yapping about it
22:54but yeah we can all search it up the new zealand rental tenancy act and it lays out a very good
23:00structural baseline of what our tenancy act could look like right and i think also we looked at south
23:06africa yeah so i think compared for malaysian market right sure most tenancies in malaysia in especially
23:12incline valley are contracted uh but then if you go to you know different like smaller cities a lot
23:18of times tenancy doesn't even have a contract yeah it's just a word of mouth situation right so how do
23:23you make sure that that your set of rules and clear guidelines also applies to informal uh relational
23:29contractual relationships in that case right yeah right so yeah okay that was my next question actually
23:35that's the best practices so so we look up new zealand after this yeah and probably we look at
23:40south africa as well as a comparison right as opposed to you know what we're doing here in
23:44malaysia it's not a malaysian problem it's actually you know something that's already happening around
23:48the world and yeah yeah yeah you can deal with it yeah i mean to me it's it's simple right you you
23:55we are foreseeing a lot of people are going to rent because property prices are uh are going up
24:02in the meantime you want to protect these people who are going to rent so it's it's you you need to have
24:06this kind of safeguards for this industry to sort of flourish and to sort of make it right because we
24:12we don't want you know our sisters or our our brothers our family members facing racial discrimination
24:19for example not being able to get houses in kelang valley for example to rent while they're working
24:24so so yeah i think it's it's simple but yeah it takes you know and a line from 2019 till now yeah i mean
24:32really the the national housing policy yeah already outlines everything we said right uh it was it was
24:38conceived of during the first paketan harapan administration and and in such a shame i think
24:43that that it was really comprehensive right we've seen improvements in affordable housing uh to some
24:48degree we've also seen the urban renewal act uh coming up that that's meant to revitalize certain
24:52areas but where is the the the middle you know people in your post-graduation to your young adult
24:59life where it's super critical right and i think we've also getting new studies that show that the
25:05economic livelihoods of people say 23 to 30 uh this is the most important economic moment of your life
25:12because that determines how much you set up your life in the future right and if we are uh really ignoring
25:18or neglecting this this group you know both of us are renting um then really i think you're doing a
25:24disservice to really understanding the holistic housing market right so last question would be
25:33what would be your message if you could speak directly to young malaysians who are frustrated
25:37by this issue and i'm sure there are a lot of them what would you say to them to encourage them to push
25:42for this to push for fair rental to push for um you know tribunal to push for you know the end of
25:49racial discrimination right to your mp all right okay right right right your elected rep should be
25:55very easy google them you know like google whatever the place you're staying in for example if you're
25:59staying in ampang jaya just google ampang jaya elected reps and you should find their email parliament
26:03has everybody's emails on their website please write to them yeah i i i agree with you krishat that i think
26:08this is really a moment where an opportunity for you to reach out to the mps because most of us are renting
26:15right yeah um so it's really a close to heart thing i think additionally beyond the mp if you
26:20see a property agent you see a landlord uh racially discriminating right uh reported so so this is my
26:28my new line i mean uh the unity ministry has also opened rakan which is their platform and portal to
26:34collect data and in cases of of racial discrimination which is really a positive step because the government
26:40also doesn't have data on discrimination as as they're only now starting to collect it which is a good
26:44step but it also is up to us to really use that portal and to call out uh agencies and and landlords
26:53who do this thing write and report it right write and report and hopefully for those who receive the
26:58reports do something about it all right all right i think that's all the time you have thank you so
27:04much jason and kusha for shedding light on this issue it's um i feel that this is an issue that is not
27:10talked about enough so it's good that we have you know this time to actually address it
27:14and to to come up with a solution or a way forward um to to deal with this thank you so much for your
27:21time that's all from me thank you for watching
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