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\u201cIt is high time that\u00a0there is a serious audit of current social housing\u201d. These were Albert Buttigieg, ex Executive Director of the Housing Authority\u2019s words during an interview by\u00a0Voice of the Workers<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He said that\u00a0people living in social housing who have a tertiary education and who have managed to better their social circumstances should not be allowed to continue occupying a Government property. \u201cIs it just that people who 20 years ago were not economically strong but today have bettered themselves be allowed to live there?\u201d asked Buttigieg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Therefore, Albert Buttigieg is\u00a0recommending that an audit be carried out to establish the number of people who actually deserve to stay in social housing. He said that the Government needs to apply the policy of empowerment rather than dependency. \u201cThe Government is obliged to help but by help we mean help an individual get back on his feet and educating him to make decisions to improve himself not\u00a0remain in dire circumstances\u201d said Albert Buttigieg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He\u00a0emphasised that \u201cthese people cannot remain dependent on social services their whole lives and this situation is passed on from one generation to another\u201d adding that \u201cthe two political parties and interested parties involved in the social sector agree that this situation needs to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He continued to say that even the rents should not be\u00a0open ended but should be tied to a period of time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the meantime,\u00a0we have a situation where the price of property is rising and the rents are also increasing.\u00a0Property is becoming more expensive because our country is small and the land is limited. There are a great number of apartments which are beyond many Maltese people\u2019s pockets. There are apartments, in some localities, that have almost\u00a0passed the\u00a0\u20ac1 million\u00a0mark\u00a0and\u00a0firsttime\u00a0buyers definitely do not have the resources to buy such apartments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rents are getting higher also, among other reasons, because of the number of foreigners who are living in Malta. Some of these foreigners have high salaries and\u00a0can\u00a0afford to pay high rents.\u00a0We are seeing situations where six people are renting\u00a0three bedroom\u00a0apartments and splitting the sizable rent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is leading to a sector of the Maltese population who are finding it difficult to\u00a0either\u00a0buy or rent.\u00a0 The Government under the previous administration and the current Government tried to address this problem. There was an effort to help people become home owners through various schemes addressed particularly to young couples to help them own their own property.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There was and there still\u00a0are a number of schemes to help people rent either directly from the private sector, so there is a subsidy on the rent, or through Government who rents the property and then sub-lets. The\u00a0Partit\u00a0Laburista, when in the Opposition, had criticised this initiative but now that it is in Government and has seen its benefits it has extended it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Albert Buttigieg does not agree that more social housing\u00a0should be built.\u00a0 This is because, according to him, people who are on the social housing list have social problems. \u201cIf all these people are grouped together it will create a ghetto and this will lead to the ghettoization of the person\u201d said Albert Buttigieg. He said that studies have confirmed that housing estates create\u00a0additional\u00a0social problems. He said that it is a good idea for\u00a0the\u00a0government to build more housing to address the difficulties in the short term. In the long term, however, this will create further problems. If one is not careful, there is a good chance that more social problems will be created in these zones. \u201cThe government would have solved one problem and created others\u201d said Buttigieg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He believes in the scheme which was\u00a0re-issued by Government where government rents property from the private sector in different areas as this gives a better chance for people who rent from government to integrate within society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This scheme is being financed through the funds obtained through the sale of passports.\u00a0Albert Buttigieg\u00a0has some concerns about the maintenance costs of the houses in this scheme which can really add up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He does not\u00a0think that it is fair that some zones, which have already been labelled as having social problems, should be further burdened with more social housing. A decision that was taken\u00a0under the previous Nationalist administration was not to build further housing in\u00a0Cottonera. The\u00a0Government at the time had argued that as the population density in this zone is already high and given that it already has its share of social problems, it would not be wise to add more social housing apartments which will bring on more difficulties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It seems, however, that this Government will be revoking this decision and building social housing in\u00a0Bormla. Albert Buttigieg said that the Government will be\u00a0solving the problem in the short term and creating bigger social problems than currently exist in the long term.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cIt is high time that\u00a0there is a serious audit of current social housing\u201d. These were Albert Buttigieg, ex Executive Director of the Housing Authority\u2019s words during an interview by\u00a0Voice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1669,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[72],"issuem_issue_categories":[9],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1667"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1667\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“Government needs to apply the policy of empowerment rather than dependency”<\/strong><\/h1>\n
“Studies show that housing estates create additional social problems.”<\/strong><\/h1>\n