Assessment of residential satisfaction in low-cost housing provided through the zakah fund :a case of Selangor Zakat Board, Malaysia

Abstract

In Malaysia, low-cost housing is mainly delivered through both the public and private sectors. Public sector provisions are mostly concentrated in large urban centres such as Kuala Lumpur, George Town, and in the rural areas, while private sector operates in both urban and suburban areas. Recently, the Selangor Zakat Board (SZB) has started to participate in the provision of low-cost housing in the state of Selangor, and so far about 500 units have been delivered under the board’s housing programmes. This study intends to evaluate these programmes by adopting the residential satisfaction approach which is currently used as a tool for customer satisfaction for public/private housing in many local governments in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. SZB has developed a unique mechanism to collect the zakat from the qualified citizens of the state and it has also developed an efficient way of distributing it to the poor. Eight modes of payment (Asnaf) are used in distributing the funds to the poor, either in cash or in kind, and in three of these modes; the element of low cost housing has been incorporated. SZB is involved in the delivery of three types of low-cost housing: (a) cluster, (b) individual, and (c) transit. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the types of housing programmes adopted by SZB and examines beneficiaries’ housing satisfaction in each programme. In order to examine residential satisfaction, four objective components of housing satisfaction were surveyed – dwelling unit features, dwelling unit support services, public and neighbourhood facilities. The data of this study was collected from 150 respondents living in the three types of SZB housing programmes using simple random sampling. For further analyses, Pearson Chi-Square and Spearman Rank Correlation were used to assess the data. The survey results indicate that level of satisfaction were low in certain portion of the house space elements (drying area), house support services (lift lobby and lift services), public facilities (public phone) and neighbourhood environment (distance to LRT Station). Nevertheless, the findings of the study indicate that majority of the recipients were satisfied with the overall housing and choose to stay in the housing area in long-term period. Finally, the paper provides a number of recommendations that may help SZB to rationalise its future housing programmes for enhancing welfare of the poor in the state.