Do people really live like this in 2002?

No one sleeps rough in a cardboard box on Malta's streets but the homeless exist here too.

Marisa micallef leyson explains how the Housing Authority's Care and Repair scheme would work wonderfully if people kept their eyes open to help those who cannot call their home a home.

Homelessness has been in the news and in our media of late. A word like homelessness has particular shock value in a society like ours where it seems almost unbelievable that someone has nowhere to live.

Of course almost no-one is actually without a roof over their heads. Thanks in large part to our fantastic voluntary sector, and to efforts from Government, small hostels to take in these emergencies have developed and are doing sterling service. The hostel in Valletta which will be run by YMCA has a promise of Lm25,000 from the Housing Authority to carry out much needed repairs.

Yet 'Care and Repair' is about another kind of homelessness. It is about people (usually pensioners or single parents with children) in modern Malta who are living without water and electricity, who have no bathroom or inside toilet and who are so much on the fringes of our society that they do not and cannot apply for our help, and who have no-one to represent them.

'Care and Repair' is essentially about us at the Housing Authority asking for the help of community leaders (such as parish priests and family doctors) and of social workers to bring these cases to us, so we can go out and deliver a service of repairs at least, if not always of everything else that may be needed.

Some still refuse help. One parish priest referred us eight cases of pensioners with no washing facilities. Four refused our services but four will be helped.

None of these elderly people had a social worker which explains why the Housing Authority will take referrals from any source, as long as the genuinely poor are helped.

Some of the cases below (where names and some details have been altered to protect identities) give some indication of the way the Housing Authority is trying to refocus on those who are on society's fringes, whose homes are so indecent they are virtually without one.

Beneficiaries

A lone mother and her son living in an inappropriate property. The mother is disabled and uses a wheelchair and lives in the north of the island. The whole property needed to be adapted to make her house accessible, but they also needed new drains, electrical outlets and repointing of the façade. Total cost of works: Lm3,000.

A single elderly woman living alone. She has spent the last years looking after her elderly mother who recently passed away. Her home was without a bathroom. She needed structural alterations to make fitting a bathroom possible, new electricity and new floor tiles. Total cost of works: Lm3,500.

An elderly woman living in a house in the Three Cities who was living in danger due to structurally unsound ceilings. Her home also needed replacement of the electrical and plumbing systems, whitewashing, plastering, etc. Total cost of works: Lm2,500.

A single young man living in central Malta with a history of mental health problems. For years he insisted on having alternative housing and refused to do any repairs. After considerable efforts, Housing Authority technical staff and social worker persuaded him to allow us to do repairs. His home is now totally renovated. Works included plumbing, electricity, floor finishes and drainage works. Total cost: Lm3,000.

Another lone mother whose partner is in jail and who was also the victim of very serious domestic violence. She was totally unaware of our repair grants and was living in her home with no bathroom and with ceilings about to collapse. Works included repairs to ceilings, bathroom installation, new drains, membrane and damp-proofing. Total cost of works: Lm2,500.

Care and Repair is about bringing a repair service to the doors of those who will not or cannot come to us. Care and Repair is about people too, not just buildings. It is about people who are living lives few of us are in touch with and most of us cannot even imagine.

It is about the most vulnerable people in our society, many of them pensioners, many of them women with children and a huge history of social problems, and of other single people who really have no-one to look out for them.

These are the new clients of the Housing Authority, an authority which in the past was known solely for giving out plots or building housing.

It is a role we can only fulfil with the support of the whole community, from those who are professionally trained like social workers to all of you who may be reading this and may know of similar cases yourselves.

Without all of your help we cannot redirect our resources to the most needy.

Thankfully this help crosses all political boundaries and all the other false walls which divide us and prevent us from cracking problems as effectively as we really should.

Ms Micallef Leyson is chairperson of the Housing Authority