Housing Authority chairman Marisa Micallef Leyson and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina said yesterday that the two apartments would be situated in central and southern Malta.

Ms Micallef Leyson said the Housing Authority (HA) had made community care a priority. In fact, the HA has introduced initiatives such as subsidised housing and is also working on a project to completely renovate an apartment block in Valletta to accommodate elderly people.

Last November, the HA held Malta’s first one-day community care conference. Both local and foreign speakers put forward their ideas and told of their experiences and best practices. “The idea is that housing is not an isolated need but, rather, goes hand-in-hand with a number of other services,” said Ms Micallef Leyson.

She said the HA had worked with various non-governmental organisations and agencies to offer clients not just housing, but also expertise in individual areas such as disability, the elderly and mental health.

“To date, the authority has leased a total of 11 apartments to the Richmond Foundation to be used for people suffering from mental health problems,” he said.

Apart from the two apartments allocated yesterday, there are two in Fgura, two in Kirkop, one in Naxxar, three in Mtarfa and one in Ta’ Giorni. A sum of just under Lm2,000 has also been given to the foundation to install bathrooms in the Fgura apartments. The subsidy given to the Richmond Foundation is worth close to Lm7,000. (Lm3,800 subsidised rent of housing units rented through the private market and Lm3,100 being subsidy on apartments rented from the Housing Authority).

Ms Micallef Leyson said that through an initiative aimed at assisting non-governmental organisations, agencies can apply for a property or for funding to refurbish a property that will be used to offer a housing service. She said: “In this way, the HA has been able to reach a number of clients with specific problems. Without this service, they would have been impossible to target,” she explained.

“These apartments will be used to house people with mental illness and assist them in leading independent lives while making use of other services,” said Ms Micallef Leyson.

These services may include psychiatric care and links with care workers. “What we are seeing today is the outcome of a hand-in-hand approach that the HA believes in,” she said.

Ms Cristina said that implementing the principle of social inclusion often required working across disciplines and across departments. “The focus here is on the client. It is only through a client-centred approach that we may enhance the quality of service government offers to a wide spectrum of users,” said Ms Cristina. She said the government was working at providing increasingly personalised services and thanked the Richmond Foundation for what she termed “pioneering work in the provision of community rehabilitation services in the field of mental health care”.

Richmond Foundation chief executive officer Doris Gauci said she was convinced that many people residing at Mount Carmel hospital did not need to be there. “Unfortunately, although things are improving steadily, there are not enough social services for such people and we need to work hard to improve facilities,” she said.