President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca expressed concern that a large number of homeless people were youths who had just come out of prison or care.

Some 400 people a year end up homeless, according to statistics gleaned from voluntary organisations.

Speaking at a conference organised yesterday by the Anti-Poverty Forum, social worker Bryan Magro said the statistics were taken from shelters and excluded the elderly, disabled people and children.

Homelessness was a multifaceted problem, Mr Magro noted. It comprised rooflessness (without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough), houselessness (with a place to sleep, albeit temporary, in institutions or shelters), living in insecure housing (threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies, eviction and domestic violence) and living in inadequate housing (in caravans on illegal campsites, in unfit housing, in extreme overcrowding).

People are forced into such situations by financial crises, accidents that leave a family homeless, after leaving institutions, family problems such as domestic violence and substance abuse (drugs or alcohol).

Some spend three years homeless, sleeping in cars and sneaking into Mater Dei Hospital’s wards to have a shower

St Jeanne Antide Foundation CEO Nora Macelli said she knew of cases where people spent three years homeless, sleeping in cars and sneaking into Mater Dei Hospital’s wards to have a shower.

Some homeless people included pregnant prostitutes, who ended up sleeping under the same roof as their clients. Others suffered from mental health problems.

“The problem is that the law ties our hands. We’ve come across people with mental health problems who, because they are ill, refuse help. They refuse to wash or to change their filthy clothes. And, because they do not pose a danger to themselves or to the community, we cannot apply for them to, involuntarily, be given psychiatric treatment.

“You can’t persuade them to seek help voluntarily. You’ll be having a conversation with the illness and not the person,” she said.

Mariella Mendez Cutajar, who runs the supported housing scheme within the Richmond Foundation for homeless people emerging from Mount Carmel Hospital, said the stigma was enormous. “There have even been protests by neighbours once they learn that an apartment will be used for our programme.”

Fr Mark Cachia, from the Jesuit Refugee Service, said refugees were particularly vulnerable and at risk of ending up homeless. The most vulnerable were those migrants granted temporary humanitarian protection because they would have no right to benefits. They could work legally but the permit was given to their employer. Many ended up living in overcrowded conditions in small apartments.

Mgr Victor Zammit McKeon, director of Ejjew Għandi, the Church agency for children’s residential homes, noted there was a great lack of professional care assistants required to look after minors in institutions.

Please let us not open up more homes if we cannot find professionals to care for the children

“Often enough, the problem is not the children but the staff. They wouldn’t know how to handle the children’s challenging behaviour because they are not professionals and you end up in a situation where it’s hard to get to the bottom of an incident. Please, let us not open up more homes if we cannot find professionals to care for the children,” Mgr Zammit McKeon said.

President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca expressed concern that a large number of homeless people were youths who had either just come out of prison or from out-of-home care.

According to statistics, a quarter of the population was living in poverty or at risk of poverty, she added, appealing to politicians to introduce a social wage for those on the minimum wage who were not making ends meet.

Social solidarity shadow minister Paula Mifsud Bonnici called on the government to provide a holistic plan aimed at helping such people stand on their own two feet and become independent.

Merely offering them social housing was not the solution; they had to be issued with care plans and followed along the way.

Solutions

• Better management of the public social housing supply.

• Creation of a supply for new and adequate social housing.

• Providing incentives for increasing accessibility for home ownership.

• Providing housing support through the private rental sector.

• Providing support for improved conditions in social housing.

• Vulnerable people had to be helped and guided towards support services as they were often the ones who slipped through the net.

• Many more social workers were needed within the community, as well as more professional care assistants working with institutionalised people.

• Better coordination between different organisations and NGOs to ensure continuity and maximisation of resources.