Page 23 - Housing & Poverty In Malta With A Focus On The Southern Harbour Region

7. The Potential Links Between

Poverty and Housing

Notwithstanding the fact that poverty and housing, prima facie, seem to have nothing to
do with one another, a deeper look at the issues is likely to suggest a totally different
story.

Before looking at the links between poverty and housing, it would be in order to point out
that housing has several relevant stages to it. There is the identification of a parcel of land,
the loss of use of that parcel of land (e.g. in agriculture or in industry) to housing
construction, the construction activity itself and the final product that can either be used
for habitation throughout the entire or just part of the year or that is left to lie in disuse
until the established asking price is met.

Given these phases, there are several channels through which housing and employment
might potentially be linked. In losing the productive usability of land, for instance,
employment opportunities that the productive use of that land could have led to will be
lost. This will be replaced, for some time, by the creation of potential employment in
construction that mitigates poverty. Even though such employment is transitory, it is apt
to be more labour intensive, as an activity than agriculture, though this does not
necessarily apply to industrial activity that could have taken place on the same land.

The second channel through which there is a link between housing and poverty is in that
phase in which the housing construction is completed. Vacant housing that is just lying
idle waiting to be sold represents a stock of deadlocked capital that could be generating

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