The number of people waiting for social housing is expected to drop by 60 per cent by the end of the year, as new public accommodation becomes available. 

Addressing a press conference on Friday evening, Social Accommodation Minister Roderick Galdes said the waiting list for social housing was at its highest in 2017 when 3,288 were hoping for a state-financed home. 

By the end of this year, the waiting list will stand at 1,321 - a 60 per cent drop from that 2017 high, Galdes noted. 

Furthermore, some 279 families will move into their new home early next year as newly built housing sites in Birkirkara, Attard, Żebbuġ, Siġġiewi, Żurrieq, Kirkop and Qrendi all become available.  In addition, there will be another 100 housing units allocated from a new rental scheme operated conjointly between the government and private owners. 

Those projects will mean that by the end of 2022, the waiting list will stand at less than 800 people. 

The approved applicants will soon be notified about when they will be given the keys to their new home and where these will be located. 

Galdes said the allocations were based on a new policy announced in August, which aims to priortise helping those most in need. 

“In the housing sector we are not only giving a key to a new home but a key to a new life,” Galdes said.

Galdes said this would be the first time the government will be fully transparent in the way social housing is allocated, publishing the process.

Giving an overview of the authority’s work in recent months, Galdes said a new profiling study and the building of around 1,700 new homes had halved the waiting list rate - that is the time people spend waiting to be given a place to live.  

There had been around 700 allocations in the last three years from existing available housing units and new ones from the restoration and regeneration of vacant homes. 

The authority had also recently launched a specialised housing program and rent benefits.

'We chased after every key'

Leonid McKay, who heads the Housing Authority, said he and his staff had “chased after every key”, conducting a thorough due diligence process to weed out abusers.   

“We have passed the applicants through a rather strenuous administrative process in order to ensure that those who are being allocated a new unit are really in need,” he said. 

As of January any new housing contract signed with the authority will remain a lease and will not be sold. 

Leased accommodation, he said, should no longer be treated as if they were a “life-long donation”.