Rent control should not be excluded, Anti-Poverty Alliance says

Some form of rent control is necessary if young people planning to start a family are to afford rent without spending a large portion of their salaries, the Anti-Poverty Alliance has said.

The organisation acknowledged that the 2018 budget had included some positive measures regarding the regularisation of rent, which would help to reduce hardship and insecurity for families.

It said Malta should not go back to the pre-1995 strict form of regulation but the alliance disagreed with the government over the outright refusal to consider any form of rent control before the publication of a White Paper on property rent.

The alliance added that the government “should use the wealth it had generated from the economy to help every family become homeowners".

It also said inflation affected low-income earners differently than it did the rest of the population. Although minimum wage earners and pensioners were given a raise higher than the inflation rate, they still struggled with prices of essential goods such as food, clothing, medicine and rent.