Although home ownership has to date been a very effective tenure for the growing majority of Maltese and Gozitans who can afford it, it cannot be the solution for everyone. Some people's income is derived only from social security and therefore they cannot get a loan. These also include pensioners who, contrary to popular perception, do not always afford to have anywhere decent where to live. Many people with a chronic illness or disability also find it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to get a loan. Additionally, for many others who have seasonal, part-time or not secure jobs (including the very many single and low income families valiantly bringing up children on their own), the prospect of a loan seems impossibly daunting.

All governments have been aware of this and units for rent are being supplied. Government supply, however, cannot match the demand on its own and it is clear that we do need to get some vacant properties from the private sector into the supply chain.

One political party insists that revising the rent laws will do the trick. This is mistaken because properties that are empty today can be rented out tomorrow with tenancies whereby the tenant has no security whatsoever. So there are clearly other reasons why landlords are not renting.

How then can we incentivise landlords to rent? How can we remunerate them properly for their investment? And, most importantly, how can we ensure that tenants are not abused and exploited?

First of all we must realise we don't have any clear information about modern rents today. We know anecdotally that most landlords are not declaring new post-1995 rents but we don't know the rent levels and so we cannot be sure of affordability issues as well as many other problems. I think it is essential that we start by first incentivising the declaration of rental income by introducing a flat tax rate of say 10 per cent. Clearly, no owner or landlord (especially those with a loan on the property concerned) is likely to declare the whole rental income and pay a third of it as profit in the current scenario.

If we want the existing to-let area to grow we have to incentivise landlords too. So many have been hurt by the old fixed rents, by the unfair right of inheritance under the old rent laws, by exaggerated requisitions and the like, that it's going to take a lot for this sector to trust the government again. A low flat rate for new rents would be one positive step forward.

We know this is a problem at the Housing Authority because many of our applicants for rent subsidy bring along a tenancy agreement but say the landlord will not give them a receipt. Many of these families are renting in the St Paul's Bay, Qawra and Bugibba areas and while the Housing Authority is helping we would be able to do more if we could be sure the help was going to tenants and not to landlords.

It is not the first time an applicant tells us the landlord just puts up the rent by the amount of subsidy the tenant obtains, thus defeating the whole point of trying to use subsidies to help families afford housing.

The Housing Authority will shortly be announcing an improvement to our rent subsidy scheme so we can help more families and single people with their housing affordability problems. We can help at the micro level but we need help at the macro level too so the private rental sector can start to emerge slowly out of the black economy and so that we, at the Housing Authority, can better channel the taxpayers' money towards helping those who mostly genuinely need this help.

Ms Micallef is chairman of the Housing Authority.