Homelessness: Malta’s ‘best kept growing secret’

An insidious concatenation of social factors prevents homelessness from being viewed as a problem in Malta, although at least one academic has referred to it as Malta’s “best kept growing secret”.

This emerges from an undergraduate dissertation submitted to the University of Malta’s Department of Anthropology by Rachael Tedesco Triccas, which was primarily based on research conducted at the YMCA homeless shelter in Valletta over a number of months.

Focusing on four different YMCA residents, Tedesco Triccas found that the ‘Maltese homeless’ differ greatly from the popular perceptions we may have of them – via films and so on. More crucially, however, Tedesco Triccas also found that Maltese instances of homelessness occur and develop much differently to their counterparts in larger areas, such as in American cities (in other words, the areas from which the key academic literature on the subject would emerge).

Apart from the YMCA being particularly accommodating as far as homeless shelters go – for one thing, residents are allowed a six-month period to find their feet – the necessity (or even desire) to self-identify as ‘homeless’ tends to be seen as undesirable, also owing to the fact that social anonymity is near-impossible in such a small country as Malta.

Particularly owing to the fact that the YMCA is located in the “dense hub”, which increases the chances of bumping into friends and relatives, Tedesco Triccas writes that, “people are not willing to beg on the streets and lose face with people they know. They therefore feel the need to keep working on their self-presentation during their homeless periods so as to keep up appearances with those whom they encounter outside of the shelter”.

In fact, it was often difficult to tell the difference between residents and staff at the YMCA, as the difference in attire and general appearance was often “minute”, according to Tedesco Triccas.

Owing to these and other factors, researcher Cyrus Vakili-Zad claimed in 2006 that homelessness is “Malta’s best kept growing secret”.

Vakili-Zad believes this to be down to “strong family ties, community cohesion and the benevolent state”. The fact that the tight-knit family provides an enduring model for social life in Malta as a whole can end up being something of a double-edged sword, as it also implies close scrutiny of one’s life, putting psychological pressure on the individual to feel shame about homelessness (as one example) and to therefore hide it from family and peers, which in turn encourages a sense of inertia.

In fact, residents are faced with something of a Catch-22 scenario when they come to look for employment and job training, which contributes to the social and professional stagnation that may set in for some of the residents.

Tedesco Triccas spoke to an 18-year-old resident – unemployed at the time of writing – who earns €98.50 in social benefits every week, “and a stipend plus bonus every three months, which together amount to around €200”, an allowance which, Tedesco Triccas observes, “seems to be very generous for example when compared to the student stipend of circa €84 per month”.

“However,” she continues, “if he begins (say) a computer course leading to a diploma, Mark will have to give up all these benefits for €78 per month; this leads him to have little incentive to educate himself for better job opportunities.

“He admits that even the social workers at the YMCA shelter told him it would not be worth it to give up so much money in benefits for a course.”

As distinct from other residents Tedesco Triccas spoke to – who expressed a desire to eventually move out of the shelter – the 18-year-old resident appeared content to “spend his days watching TV, playing computer games, and browsing Facebook.

“He does not seem to feel an urgency to transition out of his homeless period.”

Interestingly, she also noted how residents stopped short of making any reference to their homelessness on social media.

Commenting on their Facebook usage, Tedesco Triccas writes how, “most of the younger residents had photos of themselves socialising: photos of them all dolled up alongside their peers, mostly consuming some beverage inside a club or bar”.  “The message was clear – the residents were definitely eliminating their homeless identity to their virtual friends.”