Getting rid of the poor is not eradicating poverty

Okay sure. The Federal Territories minister has cleared the air on his remarks regarding soup kitchens operating in the city of Kuala Lumpur.

Apparently, he did not say that soup kitchens providing free meals for the poor and homeless in the city will not be allowed to continue with their work.

His rules are for these soup kitchens to operate only outside a 2km radius from the Lot 10 and Bukit Bintang area, so that they won't dirty the area.

That's a fair and reasonable request, I would say. But I guess that this would still be a good time to talk about the issue of these non-profit soup kitchens and the plight of the homeless.

The fact that anyone can actually think that just by providing free food we are encouraging the homeless and jobless to stay jobless, is ridiculous.

I doubt that a homeless and poverty-stricken person has anything else going to want to stay in that situation, just because he or she gets to eat for free once or twice a week.

By giving free haircuts and maybe a set of clean clothes to them does not mean that they don't face any other problems the rest of their lives and are care free.

For a homeless and jobless person to come out of his situation, cutting off the supply of free hot meals does not help one bit at all.

What needs to be done is to make sure that there are jobs available for them to do. And these jobs need to be able to pay a decent amount of money for them to live a decent life.

And, for them to be able to qualify for these jobs, a good quality education system needs to be in place so that they have the opportunity and are able to gain the knowledge to do these jobs.

The cost of living needs to be at a level that is reasonable so every layer of society will be able to enjoy quality living standards, like having a decent home and affordable health care.

People in Malaysia need to realise that just by getting rid of poor people from sight in the middle of the city does not mean getting rid of poverty in the country. Treat the cause and not the symptom.

It is impossible to eradicate poverty totally. I have travelled to so many countries, from the highly developed like Sweden and Germany, to the highly needy like Myanmar and Afghanistan.

Safe to say that in all these countries, there are bound to be people who are less fortunate. It is just a matter of the varying degrees of poverty.

And this is where the maturity and compassion of a society come in. Remember the popular saying, "the best test of a civilised society is the way in which it treats its weakest members". – July 4, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.