BUTTERWORTH: After waiting 40 years, former cook Yeap Gaik Looi finally has a place to call home after getting an offer for to a 650 sq ft, three-bedroom unit at the Mak Mandin Indah Apartment project here under a rent-to-own scheme (RTO).
Yeap, 77, who is a wheelchair user, was among 29 recipients who received offer letters for units under the scheme.
“I am overjoyed. Thank God my prayers have been answered,” said Yeap, who has been staying at a nursing home due to her health for the past 20 years.
Before that, she and her family lived in a squatter settlement near Bukit Dumbar on Penang island.
Under the RTO scheme, recipients pay RM250 a month over 15 years before ownership of the units is transferred to them. They must also pay a monthly maintenance fee of RM110.
Another recipient, security guard K. Gopinath, 45, said he was relieved seeing the offer after years of hardship following a road accident two years ago.
“I never thought I would one day own a house. This gives me a sense of security and a fresh start,” said Gopinath, also a wheelchair user.
For the past two years, Syaidatul Sharmiza Azhar, 26, has been trying to rebuild her life while raising her two children alone after being abandoned by her husband.
The supermarket worker from Butterworth said she and her children, aged nine and five, had been staying with her mother at the Ampang Jajar flats.
“I am thankful to the state government for giving me this opportunity. This means a lot to us,” she said.
The Mak Mandin Indah Apartment is an affordable housing development project by the Penang Development Corporation.
Penang housing committee chairman Datuk Seri Sundarajoo Somu said RTO provides people with the opportunity to be homeowners without heavy reliance on housing loans at the initial stage.
He said the state government, together with the Penang State Housing Board, would continue to strengthen the scheme to achieve its target of supplying 22,000 RTO units by 2030.
