It shouldn’t take a genius to realise that an increase in demand for rental accommodation will result in an increase in rental prices, creating a ripple effect on Maltese society.
The pressure created by rocketing rent prices is being felt across the board, especially by low-income earners. By this, I am not only referring to workers on the minimum wage but also employees, who are generally considered to earn a decent wage.
Consider the situation of someone earning €1,100 a month. Out of that wage, he has to pay rent as high as €700 per month. How can a person possibly provide a decent life for his family with a balance of €400 a month, with bills to pay and essentials to buy?
One may argue that today’s reality has made it almost a necessity for all the adults in the family to work. However, this is not always possible for all sorts of reasons, ranging from parental restraints, educational or skill bars and particular family situations.
Whereas the active participation of women in the workforce should be encouraged through appropriate incentives, what should lead a person to opt to work should not be the imminent risk of poverty. Worse still, our country is facing a reality where even when one has a steady income, it is sometimes not enough to sustain a family.
We should also bear in mind that society is not made up solely of families in the traditional sense. There are varied set-ups, such as single-parent families and persons living on their own, including pensioners, who can have only one source of income and are directly affected by increases in rent.
An effective solution can be found if we believe that every person in our society deserves a decent life
Moreover, without generalising, when taking into account the Maltese preference for buying accommodation rather than renting, the hardship created by a rent increase becomes even more pressing, as it affects directly a sector of people who cannot afford to acquire a property of their own.
Facing this reality, one would expect the current ‘socialist’ government to take some sort of action to address it. Not only does no plan of action on the matter exist, but the government itself contributed to the problem by increasing the rents in social housing in such a way that some families are now paying double or even triple the rent they paid in 2013.
This measure has drawn great criticism from the Nationalist Party, which has taken a clear stand in favour of the affected families. In spite of the finance minister’s declaration in the last Budget that rents on social housing would be lowered again to 2013 rates, the rents in January stayed the same.
Instead of actively working for a solution, the government is acting as a landlord whose focus is set on how to extort money from the most vulnerable families in our society. To add insult to injury, the government has not invested into one single housing unit, despite the ever-increasing list of persons waiting for social accommodation, especially in the light of the new reality of the rental market.
Regularisation of the rental market is a very sensitive issue, since one must also consider the rights of owners. One must not consider measures that could even indirectly revert the situation to how it was in the past, when the rights of tenants were so strong that the owner was left practically without any say over his own property.
At the same time, one must ensure that housing is accessible to all strata of society, since it is one of the basic human necessities. Direct intervention in the free market and imposition of strict limits are more often than not very disruptive and have negative effects on the economy.
Certainly the State can help a lot with adequate housing schemes and incentives. What is certainly needed, however, is a holistic plan which addresses the matter from a wide perspective and proposes tangible measures directly for the rental market and also on collateral matters such as whether the present minimum wage is still adequate to meet today’s needs.
No matter how complex the issue is, I firmly believe that an effective solution can be found if only we believe that every person in our society deserves a decent life. It is useless having a booming economy when its fruits are not reaching all strata of society.
Our country direly needs an administration which has its focus on the needs of society and is not hindered by constant corruption cases and scandals.
The PN under the leadership of Simon Busuttil can be the change that this country needs, precisely because it is proposing a way of doing politics that has the human person at its heart.
Dorian Sciberras is deputy mayor of Iklin and a PN general election candidate.