The acute shortage of social housing units within the government’s stock of properties has meant that last year only one out of every 27 applicants on the waiting list was successful. 

In 2018, the Housing Authority allocated 116 properties, which was less than half the number of social housing applications received during this period – which totalled 286. 

Looking at the bigger picture, however, the situation is grimmer as the overall number of pending applications has reached 3,172 – 27 times the number of units allocated last year.

Meanwhile, schemes launched in 2018 in a bid to increase the government’s stock of properties for those in need had modest success. 

One of these incentives was to encourage elderly people who had moved to retirement homes to return their government property to the authority in return for receiving a 20 per cent increase in their pension. However, this measure only yielded 14 properties.

In 2018, a separate scheme was launched where owners of vacant private properties would receive a grant to restore them, in return for hiring out the same dwelling to the Housing Authority for a 10-year period. Only 29 applications were filed, of which 10 were accepted and a further 11 were still pending. 

Enforcement was by far the most successful measure adopted by the authority as it yielded 87 properties. 

The sharp rise in population has accentuated the problem

In such cases, the authority would take back the dwellings on the strength of periodic inspections to determine if the tenants were those entitled to live there, and that no unauthorised use was being made of the same property. 

Though the issue of social housing goes back decades, the sharp rise in population, mainly due to the influx of foreign workers, has accentuated the problem, as properties are becoming less affordable. 

According to a recent study by KPMG, the estimated overall growth in price level of properties increased between 20 and 25 per cent between 2016-2017.

Faced by this situation, the government has launched a massive investment to build over 1,000 units across the country. 

Nonetheless, it is still facing criticism that no short-term measures are being taken as this project is still a long way from materialising. 

Meanwhile, the social housing waiting list keeps rising. However, the authority stepped up its efforts to support tenants renting private properties through an annual subsidy of up to €2,000 each. Last year, 2,186 applicants benefitted with the overall amount of subsidies increasing by €868,000 over 2017, up to €2.4 million.