Affordable public housing for low-and middle-income households in Malaysia : a proposed Islamic public-private housing co-operative model

Abstract

Housing is considered as the second most important basic necessity for human beings to live an adequate life. On a country scale, governments are responsible to ensure the availability of affordable public housing to underprivileged low- and middle-income households in the society. Nonetheless, acquiring an affordable house has now become increasingly problematic proposition for many low- and middle-income households in Malaysia. Previous studies demonstrate that the lack of financial affordability, poor maintenance and mismanagement are the key issues in affordable public housing schemes. Therefore, this study developed and validated a Shariah-compliant Islamic Public-Private Housing Co-operative Model (IPHCM). The study applied mixed methods of focus group, interviews and questionnaire survey. A focus group was conducted with nine residents of public housing project to validate the identified key issues in public housing schemes. Further, nine interviews were conducted with Shariah scholars and affordable housing experts to validate the IPHCM model. The findings of interviews were positive whereby informants agreed on the Shariah-compliance, suitability and applicability of the IPHCM model as an alternative to affordable public housing schemes in Malaysia. Drawing upon the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), the questionnaire survey was distributed to 300 respondents who are the residents of PPR housing projects. The data from questionnaire survey was analysed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) as this method is more suitable for complex modelling and theory development studies. The study finds that perceived affordability (PA), subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioural control (PBC), perceived maintenance and management (PMM) and perceived consumer religiosity (PCR) are instrumental in predicting the behavioural intention to adopt the IPHCM model. It is also reported that the control behaviour, normative beliefs and behavioural beliefs are strong determinants of perceived behavioural control, subjective norm and attitude towards behaviour, respectively. The current study findings offer valuable insights to policy makers to understand the pertaining issues and households’ preferences to adopt a new public housing scheme. Moreover, the implementation of IPHCM model can also contribute in achieving the objectives of National Housing Policy (NHP) that is to ensure that all Malaysians, particularly the low- and middle-income households, have access to adequate and affordable shelter. The study also added new constructs of PA, PMM and PCR that contribute to the existing literature of TPB and provides new perspectives on behavioural intention to adopt affordable public housing scheme.