Needed: a war on poverty

Malta may have 'weathered the international global crisis' - to use that hackneyed expression for the umpteenth time - but the forecast at street level may not be quite as rosy.

In the same week that the IMF issued a generally favourable report on the state Malta's banking and financial services sector, local statistics emerged to indicate an alarming increase in the number of families having slipped below the poverty line in the past few years.

Figures released this week by the National Office of Statistics reveal that almost half (47%) of Malta's single-parent households fell into the 'high risk of poverty' category in 2011. The risk has increased to almost 56% this year, according to Eurostat.

The same source also paints a discouraging picture of the immediate future. Eurostat figures show that around 22% of young people (under 18) live at risk of poverty in Malta and Gozo.

Taken together, the two reports point towards a soft, white social underbelly in which a considerable proportion of Malta's families now struggle to meet even their most basic needs, despite a social welfare system that is widely perceived to be generous compared to other European models.

Comparisons at other levels likewise yield discouraging results. An earlier Eurostat report indicated that poverty in Malta reached a high of 21.4% in February 2011, up from 19.1% in 2006. This is considerably higher than fellow EU members such as the Czech Republic (15.3%), Denmark (18.9%), France (19.3%) and Luxembourg (16.8%).

As has been consistent in all such reports, the overwhelming majority of people at risk of poverty reside in the inner harbour areas, other parts of the south of Malta and in Gozo.

Yet surprisingly, the upsurge in poverty remains largely unaddressed by the mainstream media; and even in political circles the issue remains firmly locked in a vortex of recrimination and finger-pointing.

Instead it has fallen to NGOs and individual observers to call for a nationwide debate on how to tackle the growing number of people living below the poverty line in Malta.

Charles Miceli, co-founder of the Alliance Against Poverty, warns that complacency can no longer be an option, given such damning evidence

"Poverty levels are much higher than what most people think," Miceli told MaltaToday. "Things are getting worse, even if the real problems are rarely talked about in any detail."

Asked to comment directly on the NSO figures, Miceli points out that statistics on their own can be deceptive.

"Stats talk about people 'at risk of poverty', but in my experience there are people who are poor. I have met people who have nothing to eat, whose most basic needs are not being met..."

Worse still, Miceli argues that when the issue is addressed in any public forum, the discussion tends to tailspin into a blame game in which the protagonists are more concerned with identifying scapegoats than with coming to grips with the underlying causes.

"There is a culture of systematic brainwashing at work here, so that we don't see the failure of the system. The system is never wrong, it's the people who 'abuse' it who are always to blame. So instead of identifying where the real problems are, we blame the victim."

Miceli, who has considerable experience dealing with extreme social cases, points out how the blame for the failures of the system also seems to shift from time to time. So while public discussion in the past tended to focus on drug addicts, "today it's single mothers."

Yet the root causes of the growing divide between rich and poor remains studiously ignored in Malta.

"Nobody complains about millionaires who avoid paying tax. It's always single mothers... we're always finding a scapegoat, and it is nearly always the most vulnerable member of society."

Elsewhere there seems to be an unwillingness among the political class to debate issues which are of direct relevance to people's standard of living.

"The minimum wage in its present form is a serious problem. Minimum wage earners simply do not take home enough to live on; and to compound matters very often they will be precariously employed."

Another vulnerable category that is often overlooked concerns pensioners, who subsist on two-thirds of what is often a meagre pay to begin with.

For all this, Miceli points out that the country seems only to be interested in discussing things like Constitutional reform and the City Gate project.

"Every other day we create a forum for this and a forum for that. How about a President's forum to discuss poverty in Malta, and what can be done about it?"

But what can, in fact, be done about it?

"First we need a clear picture of what is actually out there. We talk about depressed areas, but the statistics on their own will not tell you what goes on in these places. For that, you need to speak to people. The local parish priest will give you a much better idea of the reality on the ground than any amount of stats. We then need to focus our energies on education and work. If we are spending millions on education each year, why aren't we getting there? Why is poverty on the increase instead of on the decline?"

Charles Miceli reasons that part of the problem concerns what he calls a 'culture of fireworks', which tends to discuss complex issues only when they become problematic and even then with no lasting effect.

"That's why it's like fireworks. We only ever discuss fireworks when there's an explosion. Then, there'll be a lot of fuss, a lot of noise, but it will quickly fizzle out and nothing will actually change."

Miceli argues that we shouldn't wait for poverty to become an insurmountable problem before taking action. "There is a lot that can be done today. Government could set up an inter-ministerial taskforce, in conjunction with civil-society representatives, to work on a serious five-year plan which could then be implemented."

Above all, we need to reassess our priorities when it comes to public spending.

"What are our priorities? On the one hand we spend billions to build a new, state-of-the-art hospital, then people keep getting diabetes because they live only on bread. In other words, we're becoming very good at treating people who already have problems but not so good at preventing the problems in the first place."

Likewise, investment in education has so far been largely limited to building new schools.

"We build schools but we don't build people's characters. To me, that's just money going to contractors."

For all this, Miceli argues that the single most urgently needed initiative remains an emergency shelter for the most vulnerable.

"I think what we need more than anything else right now is a crisis centre where people in need can find a roof above their heads, at least to spend the night, a hot meal, facilities to have a shower, and someone to listen to them. At present, because of the fear that people may abuse the system, there is too much bureaucracy to provide any meaningful help to people with their backs to the wall."