2.1.5 High Living Expenses
As the cost of living continues to rise and salaries struggle to catch up, Malaysia’s middle class may be shrinking with some hanging on by a thread and others even falling off into poverty. Although there has been a steady but painfully small incremental rise in household income in Malaysia, economists and academics say the term “middle class” does not have the same meaning it had more than 10 years ago. With salaries unable to match inflation, being middle class no longer means as comfortable a living as compared to 20 years ago. While disposable income or savings is a good indicator of how many people “live comfortably” or fall within the middle class category.
According to a recent survey conducted by JobStreet.com
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To be frank is that a high percentage of homeless people do struggle with substance abuse, but addictions should be viewed as illnesses and need to be in treatment, counselling and support to overcome. Substance abuse is both cause and a result of homelessness, often because of that people lose their housing. Research that have been done by the National Coalition for the Homeless in 2009 that is estimates, 38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26 abused other drugs. Alcohol are more common being abuse by older generation, while drug abuse is much more link to the homeless youth or young adult research by Didenko and Pankratz (2007). In many situations, substance abuse is a result of becoming homelessness rather than a cause. People are homeless often turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with their situations. Unfortunately, many treatment programs focus on abstinence only programming, which is less effective than harm-reduction strategies and does not address the possibility of relapse stated by National Health Care for the Homeless Council