The golden years or a golden cage?

Trapped?: More and more seniors are living in high-rise housing which comes with monthly fees. Can they afford to keep paying such fees if they depend only on EPF funds? — AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star

AFTER 30 or more years of paying off a housing loan, retirement should feel like the finish line. You expect to rest in the sanctuary you built. Yet for many Malaysian seniors, the home has become a financial trap. This is the silent crisis brewing behind the high-rise walls of strata developments.

While we often discuss the “sandwich generation” (adults caring for parents and their own children) or the depletion of Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) savings, we rarely discuss the brutal reality of what it actually costs to live in your own home when you are old, frail, and earning zero income.

A significant portion of our elderly population now lives in strata schemes such as apartments, condominiums and flats. Unlike the landed kampung houses of the past, these vertical villages come with a monthly price tag: the maintenance fee and the sinking fund. This creates a cruel paradox. We have a generation of retirees who are “asset rich” because they own a property worth RM400,000 or more, but “cash poor” because they survive on a dwindling EPF payout.

They own the roof over their heads, yet they live in fear of the management committee. If the lift breaks down, the cost to fix it comes from the sinking fund. If that fund is insufficient, fees rise. If the elderly cannot pay, they face penalties or cut utilities. The home that was supposed to be their sanctuary becomes a source of chronic anxiety.

This specific challenge is why the research by Dr Amalina Azmi, a senior lecturer at the Depart-ment of Real Estate, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya, is so important. Her work, entitled “The Strata Housing Attributes for Elderly to Age in Place”, provides the essential roadmap for this issue.

She has extensively mapped out the “hardware”, or the physical attributes, required for safe ageing. Through her findings, we know exactly what an elderly- friendly home looks like: 1.2m- wide doorways and passageways for wheelchairs, anti-skid flooring to prevent fatal falls, and strategically-located panic buttons at the minimum.

But can the elderly afford all that?

Now this is where new research supported by a small research grant comes in. It aims to bridge the gap between the physical checklist and the financial reality of the average Malaysian retiree.

The study asks the uncomfortable questions: Who pays for the retrofitting of a 20-year-old apartment to make it align with these safety standards? How do we support a retiree whose pension covers food but not the rising service charges required to maintain safe lifts and security? Dr Amalina’s previous research gave us the design for a safe home; this new research aims to find the resources to pay for it.

The project highlights that financial security for the elderly is no longer just about having enough money for groceries. It is about “tenure security”. It identifies that without specific financial interventions, the physical attributes of a safe home remain a luxury for the rich rather than a standard for all.

If an elderly person cannot afford to fix a broken lift, they become prisoners in their own high-rise units. If they cannot afford anti-slip tiles, a bathroom visit becomes a life-threatening hazard. This financial insecurity degrades their quality of life and leads to isolation.

So whether you are a policymaker, a child of ageing parents or a future retiree, this should serve as a wake-up call. We need to advocate for solutions that go beyond the EPF. We need mechanisms that recognise housing costs as a core component of healthcare.

If we want our parents to age with dignity, we must ensure their homes are not just buildings of brick and mortar but fortresses of financial security. We must ensure that “ageing in place” does not become “trapped in place”.

ADRIEL BRADLEY JARING

Student

Universiti Malaya