Updated: Rent law White Paper, revised equity sharing scheme, out soon

A White Paper on rent law reform will be published by the end of the month, Social Policy Minister John Dalli told Parliament this morning.

He was speaking at the end of his introduction to the debate on the estimates of the Housing Authority.

In his address Mr Dalli said he would be encouraging the authority to concentrate more on property to be given out for rent. The authority, he said,had been concentrating on helping people buy their home. However the authority needed to have better programmes to make properties available for rent to people who would never be able to buy their own home.

Mr Dalli stressed that those who received assistance from the Housing Authority should not expect that assistance to continue for ever, even when they no longer needed it.

The Housing Authority schemes showed that the authority had stretched its resources to meet demand. But there was need for a culture where one did not expect everything from the government. The government had to be develop policies which helped only those who needed help, and only for as long as they needed such help. Being in need at a particular moment in life did not mean remaining in need for ever.

The aim should be to help people reach a point where they no longer required assistance.

When he referred to the equity sharing scheme, which was recently suspended, Mr Dalli said that the scheme was being revised because the take-up limits set for it had been about to be reached. The Housing Authority did not want to stop a scheme which had proved to be popular, but it had to be sustainable.

The authority was therefore working out the figures so that a revised, sustainable scheme could be announced soon.

Alternattiva Demokratika in a statement welcomed Mr Dalli's announcement on the rent law White Paper.

New party chairman Arnold Cassola said: "AD has been insisting on the issue of rent reform for years now. The fact that there are over 50,000 empty dwellings in our country have led to spiralling costs when it comes to buying homes,not to speak of the serious environmental and economic costs which result from land speculation".

"Affordable rented property on the market is the best way forward to combat the serious social problems that our population is facing in this area.”

“Let us hope that the announced White Paper actually materializes next month and does not suffer the same fate it did at the hands of Minister Cristina, when it never saw the light years after it was announced", concluded Dr. Cassola.