New social housing inaugurated in Swatar

A new social housing block has been inaugurated in Swatar, and could accomodate up to 75 households.

The investment marks one of Malta's largest social accommodation projects. It was inaugurated Friday afternoon by Housing Minister Roderick Galdes with Housing Authority CEO Leonid Mckay.

Since 2017 the social housing waiting list halved in size, with less than 800 people expected to be on the list by the end of 2022. 

McKay said that this was owed to initiatives like the social loans schemes, grants for people to make their house more accessible, and a regulation exercise on rents. 

He added that the Housing Authority widened its remit and embarked on other schemes to alleviate demand for social housing. For example, the majority of applicants who applied for a social loan were originally on the waiting list. 

"If we hadn't reformed the pre-1995 rents we would have seen more elderly people asking for social housing."

Galdes said that the project costed €10 million, and is the first site to be inaugurated from a number of buildings. 

"We regularised rent, regenerated dilapidated places, pushed people on lower incomes to become homeowners too. These initiatives, together with strong enforcement against social housing abuse, provided us with hundreds of homes. This is how we've been able to lower the waiting lists."

He added that the ministry wanted to avoid creating new ghettos while integrating social housing into the community. "We followed all planning regulations, respected cultural heritage, and where needed, we started anew."