KOTA KINABALU: A homeless man in Sabah’s rural Keningau district loves cats and cannot bear to see them hungry, injured or like himself, living without a roof above their heads.

       Despite living near a dumpsite, the man, believed to be in his 50s, ensured that the strays he rescued and fed were comfortable.

       At first, he only had a few to care for, using whatever money he could get from kind-hearted people and leftover food from restaurants to feed them.

       However, later down the years, people started to take advantage of this “cat carer”.

       “People started just dumping their cats and sometimes dogs, many of which were either ill or injured,” said stray feeder, Grace Jorest Josip, when contacted.

       The 22-year-old said the homeless man takes the injured cats and dogs to the vet if they fell ill, gets them vaccinated and does whatever he could to keep them healthy.

       “I am not sure how he pays for the bills, but I am sure there are people donating money to him,” she said, adding many of the cats and dogs were kept in old cages while some were left to roam freely.

       Of late, Grace noticed that there were more strays there than before, while the site was also full of cat carcasses.

       “There were dead animals and bones, and they were rotting everywhere.

       The homeless uncle who cares for strays.

       “My friends and I went to help out by burying the dead animals and just cleaning up the place so that the animals and the homeless uncle would not get sick,” she said.

       She does not know how long the man, whom she only refers to as uncle, has been homeless, but she has been seeing him in the area since she was 14.

       The fitness trainer and yoga instructor said after starting a business at the area with her coach, she and her friends as well as their team of volunteers have made it a point to help out daily by donating food and feeding the strays.

       Grace’s coach is 46-year-old international mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter AJ Pyro (AJ Lias Mansor), who is known to feed strays.

       She said the homeless uncle was shy, didn't talk much and would either turn or walk away if he saw them taking out cameras to take photos.

       It took them quite a while to get some information from him, about his background and how the area became a stray animal dumping site.

       From what they managed to gather, the uncle was from Peninsular Malaysia and he used to work here but never revealed why he ended up homeless and alone.

       “However, I have a feeling that he is actually a well-educated man, because when he speaks, he seems knowledgeable about many issues but he never wants to talk about himself much,” Grace said.

       She said the uncle told them that when people knew he took care of strays, they just started coming in, leaving their ill and unwanted animals with him.

       She said the uncle told them that no matter how difficult it was for himself, he could not bear to just leave the animals there to die or go hungry.

       “The uncle said he must take care of them, his heart breaks and he cannot sleep if he knew of one stray near him that he overlooked,” Grace said.

       She had recently shared the matter on her social media platforms and managed to get people to help adopt the strays.

       Now, there are only about a dozen of them left under the uncle’s care.

       Grace advised the public to be more empathetic towards animals, and to stop taking advantage of another person, especially a homeless man who has nothing.