Homelessness : a public policy approach

Abstract

The general idea of the Maltese population is that homelessness is totally inexistent and is very often considered as a problem, which only foreign countries experience. Personally, before starting this dissertation, I was also quite unaware of such problem and it was only after having read a particular article on a local newspaper that I started to take interest in field. During this study I have tackled the issues of homelessness from many different angles, taking into consideration the local and foreign sphere. Results have shown that the main causes of homelessness abroad differ totally from the factors leading to homelessness in Malta, such that the Maltese homeless is a totally different person from the European homeless, just because he/she has had different experiences and has faced different problems. Homelessness in Malta is a build-up of a vast amount of other social disorders that need to be tackled separately. Focusing on such problems will definitely reduce the number of homeless people in Malta.