“Where are you from?” was a question from real estate agents that Negmeldin Soliman began to dread. He had landed a steady job and was looking for a way out of the Marsa Open Centre.
“One agent was very honest to me. He said specifically: your skin colour will make it very difficult for you to get a house.”
“It made me sick when I heard that,” Negmeldin says.
The agent himself was apologetic. He had argued multiple times with landlords over the matter, but felt a duty to be upfront with his client.
Other agents were less direct. Properties suddenly became unavailable when Negmeldin called.
Finally, a friend recommended him to a landlord whose Gżira apartment was vacant.
“It was my first place in Malta. I had a good relationship with the landlord. He even said that he was wrong about ideas he had about us Africans. He was scared I wouldn’t pay the rent and that I would leave the place dirty.”
This experience is common to many migrants, according to the director of the human rights NGO Aditus, Neil Falzon. Property owners are either unwilling to rent to them or too keen to exploit them, simply because of who they are: refugee, black, African, migrant, Muslim...
“The impact of racism is brutal, it forces people to live on the edge of existence: it’s shameful that we have still done nothing as a nation to fight it,” Dr Falzon says.
Today, Negmeldin is the leader of the Sudanese community, and he is helping over 35 of its members look for accommodation.
The Ħal Far open centre is not meant for long-term residence, he says. It is overcrowded and dirty. The hot water runs out very fast and in the summer people queue for 15 minutes or more to have a shower. It’s difficult for them to get to work on time, he adds.
One resident of the Ħal Far open centre, who has been there for 13 months, told The Sunday Times of Malta that it is extremely difficult to live without a washing machine, and that hygiene standards are very poor.
Dr Falzon agrees that open centres cannot be considered as providing suitable accommodation.
The impact of racism is brutal, it forces people to live on the edge of existence
As a minimum they provide initial housing support, but staying there beyond a couple of weeks or months can be extremely tough.
“Over the years, successive administrations have not put sufficient resources into seeking alternatives to the large centre model, a model we have always said is doomed to fail the nation and the migrants themselves.”
In search of solutions for those wishing to leave Ħal Far, Negmeldin claims unaffordability is the greatest obstacle at the moment. Discrimination comes second.
The owner of Quicklets, Steve Mercieca, confirms this, saying that properties are normally unaffordable for migrants coming from Ħal Far and Marsa.
“And it’s a problem the Maltese are dealing with too,” he adds.
In these cases, agents advise the client to find others to share the cost of an apartment, and try their best to match them to a landlord willing to rent their property out to them. But not many owners want eight people or so living in their properties, Mr Mercieca explains.
He cautions that while his rental agency does come across racist landlords, scandalous stories tend to travel fast.
“Ten per cent of landlords will call us up to say they don’t want any Libyans or Africans, but 10 per cent will also tell us they don’t want children or animals in their home. And a lot will also tell us they don’t want Maltese,” he says, drawing on company data.
Owners tend to fear Libyans will perform the halal ritual – a Muslim practice of slaughtering animals – in the bathtubs although this has never happened at properties linked to his company, Mr Mercieca clarifies.
Others worry that they will leave the place a mess. Many fear Sub-Saharan Africans would not be able to keep up with the rental payments because of their typically low wages.
A study conducted by the Jesuit Refugee Service and Aditus, confirms that many refugees in the community are living in poverty.
This is the reason they resort to cheaper options, such as paying for a bed in a converted stable, Katrine Camilleri, director of JRS told The Sunday Times of Malta.
Three weeks ago, over 100 migrants were found living in stables in Marsa, reportedly paying €100 a month to live in squalid conditions. And last week, a raid of an illegal Ħal Far residence called China House, forced another group of refugees onto the street.
“The only way to prevent this is by ensuring that all workers receive a salary that allows them to live with dignity, regulating the rental market in order to ensure that the rights of tenants are adequately protected and that landlords cannot charge exorbitant rents or change the rent arbitrarily,” Dr Camilleri says.
“It is also important that the government puts in place social housing options for the most vulnerable, according to pre-set criteria.”
Dr Falzon says he finds it absurd that in all the episodes of migrants living in squalid conditions the abused migrants are portrayed as the criminals.
“The landlords must be held to account, brought before the courts and punished for treating other human beings in such a disgusting manner.”