Helping the disabled to become home owners

Over the past years the Housing Authority has assisted a number of families who are experiencing disability, through its various schemes and sale issues.

The Authority runs a purposely-designed scheme (scheme 7), which offers grants to help adapting homes to suit individual disability. This may include stair lifts, adaptation to a bathroom, adaptation of electrical switches, water taps and handrails.

The Housing Authority is also assisting persons with disability via its lift scheme. Lifts are being installed in government blocks where one or more people with disability are living. With these types of assistance the authority is emphasising the importance of integrating persons with special needs in the community.

The Housing Authority also offers assistance to persons with a disability in its sale issue. Ten per cent of units are sold at a subsidised price and are reserved and allocated to disabled people.

However, sometimes disabled persons encounter difficulties with banks to acquire the necessary loan to purchase property.

The Housing Authority is announcing a change in its sale issue to ensure that it offers the opportunity to these disabled persons to purchase a residential unit at a subsidised price from the Housing Authority, by paying monthly instalments without any interest.

In this way the Authority is reaching out to these people, helping them to take up their own property and live more independently in the community.

Commenting on this change, chairman of the Housing Authority, Marisa Micallef said: "The Housing Authority Board is continually refining its schemes to ensure they reflect current problems, and feedback from our applicants as well as from the National Disability Commission.

"Although we cannot help all people with disabilities to become owners, it is very important that we do help those in employment to enjoy the same benefits of being home owners which the majority of the population enjoys."

This service will be open to disabled people in employment, with the usual conditions attached to the sale of premises. Further details on eligibility criteria will be announced in the next sale issue in August.