I have never been a habitué of Paceville.  Actually, I avoid it like the plague, except when I have to attend some seminar in a hotel there.  So even its restaurants are taboo to me.  It seems, however, that next to the gleaming skyscrapers, is a growing community of homeless people, at least according to Emma Borg writing in the Times of Malta.

Borg wrote about around 40 to 50 people who are sleeping rough in abandoned buildings during the winter and on beaches or under trees in the summer.  The numbers were confirmed by The Millenium Chapel nearby.  An area next to a bus stop near a rocky beach is littered with their belongings: empty bottles, wooden pallets, and food remnants. When Borg visited the site, she came across a man who was lying asleep on a cardboard box with a plastic cover acting as a blanket.

One man told her he had been sleeping under a tree for the past month, sharing the space with three others.  Before ending up homeless in Paceville, the 32-year-old, from Somalia, said he rented a property in Gżira and worked as a dishwasher and cleaner. However, after an accident that left him with a broken neck and in hospital for four months, he lost his job and, inevitably, his home.

“In winter, I plan to find another abandoned house in Paceville to sleep in,” he said. “I stay in Paceville because other African people are nearby, and they give me money sometimes.”  But the crowd includes various nationalities – European, non-European, and Maltese. Borg also spoke to another homeless man, a 24-year-old, who admitted to selling drugs to sustain his substance addiction. He was sleeping on a nearby bench.

The presence of these homeless people is causing alarm among residents living nearby.  Three residents said that, before the men lived on the central strip, they lived in an abandoned site. The neighbourhood is made up of senior citizens and their carers. All of those who spoke to Times of Malta said they are scared to live in the area. “I am frightened to walk out alone at night because sometimes the men start fighting,” one resident said. Another expressed frustration with the authorities: “It is pointless reporting them to the police or the council. They have forgotten about us or don’t care about Paceville residents anymore.” 

The Millenium Chapel provides crucial support, including a clothes bank and a food bank as well as a daily hot drink and bread roll to those in need.  Some of the homeless are people who escaped from their home countries due to legal issues or threats to their safety, or they came to Malta seeking work but couldn’t find any.  “Without a safety net, they are left homeless,” a community worker said.

The worker emphasised that the issue extends beyond Paceville. There isn’t enough space in local shelters to accommodate everyone, he said.  The locality’s mayor puts the onus on “higher authorities” to tackle the problem since the local council can practically do nothing about it. He points out that, when the police were made aware of the men on the central strip, though they went on site immediately, they could only refer the men to seek help from the Millennium Chapel.  Sleeping outdoors is not illegal in Malta.

Looking at comments about the story, I noticed the many assumptions made by readers, often tinged with a specific ideological perspective and an array of biases. Many assume that if you are homeless, then you must have made a grave error in your life. It’s not uncommon for those assumptions to include the traditional thoughts of addiction, drugs, criminal life, prostitution, and being the typical outcast.

The majority obviously believe that the homeless are directly and indirectly responsible for their plight. The most common assumption is that homeless individuals are lazy, insufferable, unaccountable, and incapable of maintaining any semblance of normalcy.

As for me, I am convinced of one absolute truth: no one wakes up with a yearning desire to become homeless. Homeless individuals are born with the same innate desires, temperaments, and beliefs that we are all inherently born with.

I personally knew of one who used to stop me in Valletta and engage in an intellectually-challenging conversation. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered that he was a highly-educated person and that he actually had a home but preferred living, and quite often sleeping, on the street. Homeless individuals are no different than you and I.  Some continue to take pride in their personal appearance and hygiene.  Others continues to strive for success and life beyond impoverishment.

Homelessness is often equated with a lack of personal drive, ambition, and motivation.  Asocial people then exploit the problem by perpetuating false narratives and claims of what it means to be destitute, feeding the myth that homelessness is a choice, enabling the people concerned to justify their apathy and indifference to the homeless.

Homelessness is driven by a number of factors: housing scarcity, poverty, domestic violence, divorce, sudden or unexpected death of a spouse, financial hardships and restraints, economic downturn, and of course, the physical and mental health of the individual.

Chronic homelessness can challenge the healthiest of individuals. Research has indicated that chronic homelessness can have a profound effect upon an individual’s physical mind and body. The daily struggle to survive and the stress of living on the streets eventually changes their perceptions and worldviews. Gradually, the health and wellbeing of the individual begins to decay, eroding the consciousness and intellectual integrity of the homeless person.

The plight of homeless individuals is further eroded by the very system that should be there to protect them. In a majority of the free world, homelessness is a crime.  I just hope that this will never become the case in Malta. However, apart from the legal angle, I believe that, by definition, a caring society ought to guarantee that an individual will receive adequate housing, financial support, or advocacy.

The government finds it convenient not to compile homelessness statistics, but it would appear from YMCA statistics that there may be anything between 200 and 400 homeless people in Malta. I have written about this before.  It is a stain on our society.

Thank God, there are various services that cater for homeless people in Malta such as drop-in centres, night shelters, and residential programmes. The YMCA, Dar il-Hena Foundation, Suret il-Bniedem Foundation, Dar Qalb ta’ Ġesù, and the Richmond Foundation are doing a sterling job.  But they deserve significantly more help. 

Is it too much for a country that spends €6.8 billion a year to find €500,000   ̶  that’s a miniscule 0.007% of Malta’s expenditure   ̶  to alleviate the plight of the homeless?

Main photo: Taufiq Klinkenborg