BUKIT Kopungit, some 4km outside Kota Kinabalu, is a prime example of how out-of-reach housing prices have become, so much so that even middle-income families have no choice but to continue living in old wooden homes with zinc roofs.

About 1,000 households live on the hill in the Kapayan sub-district, and most are civil servants who can’t afford newer homes in the city, said resident Joel Halim, a 52-year-old medical aide at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

He said he first settled in Bukit Kopungit in the 1990s after the hospital quarters he was living in were demolished to make way for the Penampang bypass.

The new quarters were too far away from the hospital, he said, so he and other low-ranking civil servants decided to settle on the hill.

Joel lives with his wife, also a public servant, and their six children in a single-storey wooden house at the foot of the hill. His eldest son, who is 21 and only studied up to form five, works at a cafe in the city.

Joel’s salary, plus his wife’s and son’s, brings the combined household income to RM5,000 a month.

But even with this, he said, no bank would give him a housing loan for an affordable home priced between RM250,000 and RM300,000 in Kota Kinabalu.

In any case, Joel said, the bulk of the family’s monthly expenses goes to the children’s needs as five of them are still schooling.

Household income levels in Sabah are not keeping pace with housing prices, where the cost of a home averages around 11 times higher than a family’s median annual income of RM34,320, 2014 figures showed.

“I have given up trying to get a loan. I’m looking forward to retirement in my hometown in Bongawan Papar and to work on my family’s land,” Joel said. 

Big families

Starting with only about 30 families, now, about 1,000 families call Bukit Kopungit home, said Kg Kopungit’s village chief, who only wanted to be known as Mike.

Mike said most of the residents were ethnic Dusun while some were Brunei-Malays who work as public servants, many at the nearby hospital.

“Many of them are low-ranking public servants who came to the city from rural districts like Beaufort, Tambunan and Membakut, and decided to settle near the city,” he said. 

Even after earning enough to be considered middle-income households, they chose to stay on in the village due to the high cost of owning a proper home, he said.

“It is not easy to get a house closer to the city. Even the homes as far as Tuaran, some 40km away from here, cost more than RM200,000,” he said. 

Even if one’s combined household income made owning an affordable home possible, city homes also tend to be too small for those with large families, a norm for most of Bukit Kopungit’s families, Mike added.

“The average size of apartments in the city is between 650 sq ft and 850 sq ft, with two or three rooms. It’s not enough for my family,” said Mike, who has eight children.

Although the four older children are already working, by living together, they can save on rent, he said.

Bukit Kopungit residents are also used to living in their self-built wood-and-zinc homes, despite the risk of land erosion on the hill’s slopes.

In 2000, the Kota Kinabalu City Hall gazetted the area as a village following the completion of the Penampang bypass. It was then that the village received constant water and electricity supply.

The village is divided into four zones – A, B, C and D. But its population continues to grow, with squatters setting up makeshift homes illegally outside the village boundary.

Mike said some residents moved out and rented their old homes to other rural folk hoping to find work in the city.

And because they usually work low-paying jobs, such as cleaners or security guards, rental at Bukit Kopungit is as low as RM200 to RM400 a month.

Alexander Namsi, 45, from Tenom, is one such example.

The guard at the new Court Complex in Bukit Punai earns RM1,200 a month and much of it goes to paying rent, electricity and water bills, as well as food and to meet his three sons’ schooling needs. 

“I usually do overtime to earn more. Without it, the take-home pay is much lower. The minimum wage helps a bit but it’s still not enough to support the family when you live near a city.”

Namsi doesn’t see the possibility of ever affording a proper home in his lifetime. Neither does he expect to put any of his children through college. 

“My only wish for my children is that they do well in school and that after form five, they will look for good jobs to support the family.” – August 1, 2019.