Vassallo warns on homeless

Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo yesterday said that in doing justice with property owners, one must be careful not to increase the number of homeless.

Speaking during the debate on the second reading of the Bill providing for rent reform, Mr Vassallo said that from a social point of view the government would continue to be duty-bound to watch over owners' treatment of residents.

The Bill was laying down a term with regard to inheritance of residential or commercial property, with the property reverting to the owners after that term unless a new agreement was reached.

It was making possible a certain amount of liberalisation of the market that had not hitherto been present. This gave rise to the fear of the unknown because it was still uncertain how the market would be reacting to the new scenario in 10 to 15 years' time in the quest to instil a new balance between the two sides.

The outgoing law gave poor people roofs over their heads, but the market did not know what charity meant. Would liberalisation give way to unruliness? The market should never be liberalised without submitting it to regulation to prevent abuse, because it might lead to a rise in the number of homeless. The government should be able to intervene if the principles of fair competition were being undermined.

Mr Vassallo said 15 per cent of the population lived in a risk of relative poverty, and that included 20 per cent of children. It was not true that all these people were layabouts trying to con social security. Poverty, like wealth, could be inherited because socially-excluded children might decide to remain so even when they grew up.

There were people who were well off but still lived in homes with low rents. The Bill was a good step in the direction of giving property owners their long-denied rights.

Regarding commercial property, he had originally been in favour of immediate liberalisation of rent levels. But this could lead to driving family businesses out because the landlords might want to exercise their rights.

The House should be careful of the meaning of casa bottega and decide if the Bill should prefer one sector over another. If the lessee passed away suddenly there would be no 20 years' time limit for the transfer of property.

Up to 80 per cent of private leases dated back to pre-1995, with a number of them dating back to pre-1939, paying between Lm31 and Lm50 a year. Once repossessed, most such properties would probably be earmarked for reconstruction before they could be put back onto the rental market.

Mr Vassallo said family values had changed. People who opted to rent were either unable to purchase their homes or were members of families that were breaking up. This was leading to the establishment of veritable ghettoes in certain parts of the islands.

Sadly, the government had accepted that landlords did not issue receipts for their income.

Rather than pushing the rental market, Mr Vassallo said, he was more in favour of families becoming owners of their residences. The law should be amended in such a way as to ensure the reduction of poverty, not an increase in the homeless.

In view of the relationship between social poverty and social housing, the House should see how it must be in favour of liberalisation at all costs, against unruliness and in favour of reducing poverty. If care was not taken to prevent families breaking up there would be greater demand for social housing or rented accommodation. But how would single parents afford renting if they did not have money?

The government should decide and announce that by 2010 the social benefits for single mothers declaring the fathers of their children unknown should be given only for the first child. It raised eyebrows when women had more than one child and always declared the father to be unknown.

Concluding, Mr Vassallo said the government should rent apartments from private owners and lease them back to families who needed them. It should create a social outreach programme for the sake of the children of needy families, more than anything else, because they would not be inheriting their parents' residences.

• The House yesterday approved the third reading of the Commercial Code (Amendment) Bill, the Malta Standards Authority (Amendment) Bill, the Various Laws relating to Civil Matters (Amendment) Bill and the Freedom of Information Bill.