Project to provide 250 units for rented housing

Minister for the Family Dolores Cristina, also responsible for housing, told Parliament yesterday that the Housing Authority was working on a model on how to finance a public-private partnership project providing 250 units for rented housing.

Introducing the motion for the House to approve the Housing Authority Estimates for 2010, she said the authority had identified two sites which could be given to private developers to build units for social housing. The authority was drafting a proposal on how this programme could be implemented.

In past years the authority had contributed to better social housing and home ownership. The annual report showed the authority's contribution through its many schemes. Changes in lifestyle brought new challenges in social accommodation.

Minister Cristina said that schemes would evolve according to people's needs and quality of life, with building design becoming more attractive and paying more attention to the surrounding environment with open spaces.

The authority remained committed to helping those who were most vulnerable. The social accommodation and building and construction maintenance departments had been amalgamated with the Housing Authority. Some fine-tuning was still needed in the maintenance department.

A clear distinction had to be made between social and affordable housing. The housing unit was providing units for sale to people who wanted to become owners of their own residences.

Turning to the social accommodation sector, Minister Cristina said 1,300 families had benefited from rent subsidies to families who could give clear proof of title.

The authority was also subsidising rents which under the new rent reform exceeded €185 per year. She was assured that the authority would also subsidise rents of families in difficult circumstances. There was a need for a realistic study to identify the tenants in government-owned housing. This would give a clear picture of vacant government property.

The number of derequisitions had amounted to less than 400. The ministry gave subsidies to voluntary organisations which provided shelter to vulnerable persons. The headstart project had been replaced by the "embark for life" programme, giving shelter to young people living on their own after years of institutionalisation. Through EU funds the Verdala project in Cospicua would benefit the quality of life of residents.

Minister Cristina said the authority would be spending €3.3 million in capital expenditure, €7.2 million for social housing and €3.1 million for recurrent expenditure. The rent subsidy scheme would cost the authority €900,000 while €2.5 million would be spent on maintenance costs on government housing property.

Parliamentary Assistant Stephen Spiteri said social accommodation posed a perennial challenge to any administration. The Housing Authority had received an average of 1,000 persons a month through upgraded customer care, with over 1,500 getting in touch through e-mails. This showed the huge burden on the sector.

The housing problem was a very real one, in some areas more than in others. Large families were having to live in small dwellings or in structurally-dangerous dwellings. It was very difficult to decide for one case and not for another.

The points system helped, but it should not be the only system to help decide. There were cases where a family technically had less points but whose case was psychologically more urgent than another.

Thirty-six dwellings had been issued for sale, with 78 others at subsidised prices. Last year there had been 343 new applications in a scheme for the enhancement of residences to modern standards. Another popular scheme had been the one to subsidise families for loans from local banks.

Dr Spiteri said these incentives created situations where less-well-off families could eventually become owners of their own homes. The most popular scheme was the rent subsidy scheme, wherein people could rent from the private sector and receive substantial help if their income did not reach a certain level.

There had been 434 new applications under this scheme and 277 promise-of-sale agreements, with 1,200 receiving new subsidies for a total of €900,408.

This scheme could be even more popular if greater efforts were made to incentivise private owners of residences to give out proper receipts so that more individuals could seek help.

Other schemes were available to help families with various difficulties.

Dr Spiteri said that in 2009 there had been almost 3,000 pending applications for social accommodation; 2,004 apartments had been allocated, of which 1,600 to people on the waiting list. Another important aspect was eviction of untitled residents, of which there had been 21 in 2009. This not only upheld the law but also made use of dwellings for more needy families.

Concluding, Dr Spiteri said the updating of the rent laws had been an important step forward to ease social problems for both owners and tenants.