Less ranting, more reason

Providing housing at a reasonable or practically no cost for the thousands of people in this country who either are pensioners or live off social security or are in part-time or insecure work is going to cost the taxpayer a lot of money. Thus, it is better that we face this reality than continue to be fooled by the cuckoo land theories being put forward of late.

Let's do some simple arithmetic.

To rent the most basic of properties today you need at least Lm100 a month. Let's now talk about the need out there. There are 3,000 on the housing waiting list. There are 17,000 living in properties having old fixed rents. Now let's assume a third of these need help; that would be about 6,000. Then there are the 9,000 or so who are currently living in government properties, but these are currently catered for.

So we are left with about 9,000 people who still need substantial help to pay for housing costs. I am not even including all the young couples and single people who would like to move into their own homes.

Alternattiva Demokratika have now thankfully back-pedalled on their assertion that more affordable housing could be helped to be generated through rent law reform. Now they are saying this will produce more housing for rent. Can you imagine those people with tenants who no longer have the right of inheritance? Do you honestly think these landlords are going to rent at a reasonable rate again or even at the pittance they have been forced to demand so far?

They will not and rightly so. At the end of the day then it is the government, with your and my taxes, that will either have to build or buy more housing for more of Malta's low income families or, alternatively, subsidise commercial rents in the private sector.

There is no win-win situation as AD often claim. In residential lets, the right of inheritance must go. Indeed, I wrote about this before Harry Vassallo et al ever started and the commercial rented sector needs heavy overhaul too. But we cannot forget that 9,000 families at least ( because the poor of today will be easily replaced by the poor of tomorrow) will need help with housing costs. So, if we give them a voucher of, say, Lm100 a month each to pay for a commercial rent that is a cost to the taxpayer of Lm900,000 a month or Lm11 million a year. This is a very conservative cost and also a very conservative look at housing needs and numbers but there is a real cost to rent law reform and we should consider it.

Up to now private sector landlords have shouldered this burden on their own and have lost untold revenue over the years.

The conservative Lm11 million figure, which will grow yearly, has to be borne by the taxpayer, as indeed it should. But the idea that reforming the rent laws is going to bring a decent supply of affordable housing is just pie in the sky. Housing has to be paid for and this is not yet part of our culture unless you are an owner or take out a loan. Most of those who rent see this as something that someone else should subsidise. There is clearly a lot of abuse but there are also a lot of people who can't afford to pay.

As one of the many people who work in the housing sector and who comes across on a daily basis stories of debt, illness, poverty and whatever else, I know how acute the problems are. Housing is an area that will require serious government investment over the coming years if we want to maintain the high standards of the past. A lot of good has been done but the demand, exacerbated no doubt by the social changes around us, is a time bomb waiting to explode.

Right now AD and their proponents are deluding the poor into thinking rent law reform is going to give them the almost for free housing many of them actually need. Rent law reform cannot do that. If we really believe the rent laws are unjust and must be changed, as most of the surveys indicate, we, as a society, will have to put a lot of money where our mouth is and start subsiding the poor. So far the abused private sector landlord has done this alone. Now the taxpayer will have to shoulder the burden, as is only right and reasonable.

Ms Micallef is chairman of the Housing Authority.