KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 -- Public housing in Malaysia, originally designed as short-term shelter for the urban poor, now risks keeping its tenants for far longer than intended, according to a recent Think City study.

The report found that almost three-quarters of some 3,000 People's Housing Project (PPR) residents surveyed are vulnerable to economic shocks.

Nearly 20 per cent of households surveyed said they had no savings at all, while 56 per cent said they had enough savings to last only one to three months.

The report, titled "From Roof to Resilience", polled 2,884 people across 10 public housing communities in the Klang Valley. It was part of Think City's Kita-untuk-Kita (K2K) initiative, funded by the Finance Ministry.

Around 40 per...