MP calls on Housing Authority to rediscover its social roots

Labour MP Stefan Buontempo, speaking in Parliament yesterday, repeatedly accused the Housing Authority of acting like a commercial enterprise with scant consideration for the people's social needs.

Resuming his speech from Monday during the debate on the financial estimates of the Housing Authority, Dr Buontempo started off by criticising the Department of Social Housing for lacking transparency in the way it allocated alternative housing. For a start, he said, there should not be ministerial interference in this process. Certainly, one should not need to have "blue eyes" to be eligible for social housing.

He said he disagreed that widows and single persons living in condemned premises would no longer be eligible for new housing by the department.

Turning to the shared ownership scheme operated by the Housing Authority, Dr Buontempo said he agreed with the concept as operated abroad, but not in Malta. The conditions being imposed by the Housing Authority did not help applicants but ensured, instead, a steady revenue stream for the authority itself.

The way the scheme had been devised was impractical for low income people who could never hope to own their home. What such people should be offered were properties with a reasonable rent.

In terms of this scheme, the authority was offering married couples or single mothers with low income shell form apartments at Lm38,000 with the clear aim of forcing them to borrow from the bank. At such rates, the applicants could easily go to the private sector. Such prices were being charged even though the authority was buying the land on which the apartments were being built at just Lm400 per tomna from the Joint Office.

Furthermore, such properties could also be sold to persons with a higher income if there were no eligible applicants. All this showed the real revenue raising purpose of the scheme.

Dr Buontempo said that to add insult to injury it was the authority itself which dictated the level of shared ownership which an applicant could have - either one third or two-thirds, whatever the financial situation of the applicants.

Furthermore, even though the tenants were not full owners, they still had to pay Lm30 in groundrent and then had to redeem the groundrent within 10 years. This was not legal, but it meant a revenue of Lm70,000 for the authority.

On a point of order, the minister, Dolores Cristina, insisted that the authority was not doing anything illegal. Continuing, Dr Buontempo said that when tenants became full owners, they could not sell their property within 10 years, and when they did, they had to give the authority half the difference between the price upon acquisition and the current sale value estimated by the authority's own architect.

Turning to rent, the Labour MP said he had no time to discuss rent law reform, but it was shameful that the rent for a government two-bedroomed apartment at Msida was Lm900 annually.

Here again, these were private sector prices, showing that the Housing Authority was not upholding its social role.

The authority had now resorted to renting from the private sector. A block of 16 apartments had been rented at Qawra but, not for the first time, no details had been given on the procedure that had been followed.

Dr Buontempo said that even the conditions for the authority's care and repair scheme were impractical, to the extent that 55 per cent of applicants had not benefited.

It was about time, the Labour MP concluded, that the Housing Authority rediscovered its social housing roots.

Labour MP Marie Louise Coleiro expressed her regret that the promised merger between the Housing Authority and the Department for Social Housing had not happened. This was detrimental to clients.

Ms Coleiro said the need for social housing was growing, especially in view of an increasing number of marriage break-ups and single parent families.

The national plan against poverty and social exclusion showed that single parent families were at the greatest risk of poverty especially when they had no alternative but to pay high rents. Although the authority had raised its subsidies on rents the level of assistance was far from being adequate. Ideally, the government should have a stock of housing it could rent out to such people until they overcame their crises.

Under the Labour government, banks had a social dimension but this was no longer the case. And how could the government expect private companies to have a social dimension if it did not?

When the authority gave financial assistance for works carried out in homes, the beneficiaries had to pay VAT from the amount they were given.

Ms Coleiro said the subsidy being given by the authority on bank interest payments did not make sense because banks were giving better subsidies.

Like other Labour MPs, Ms Coleiro insisted that the government and the Housing Authority needed to give greater importance to social considerations. Silvio Parnis (MLP) said Labour had the best track record with regard to social housing. It was also a Labour government which first started to encourage home ownership.

Housing problems were real and serious, he said, and such issues should be given priority by the government. He knew of several heartbreaking cases were tenants were prisoners in their own home because their disability prevented them from going out, and they were still awaiting assistance to install lifts or other facilities.