Social housing for sale: central Rome is reserved for the wealthy

From now to the next 20 years in the center of Rome and now in the surrounding neighborhoods, there may not even be public housing anymore. The harsh data emerges from a meticulous study, complete with maps and geolocations, conducted by urban planner Enrico Puccini and presented last Thursday by some of the major tenant unions. It is a frightening phenomenon from a social point of view and has wretched features: entire parts of the city in which the working classes historically lived find themselves prey to the wild market and to a titanic labor of class selection.

The process that transformed historic Rome into a tourist park or precinct for the wealthy coincides with the beginning of the neoliberal cycle. At the end of the 1980s there were many evictions due to the expiration of the lease. Furthermore, with the 1990 Jubilee, many Vatican-owned homes intended for private citizens were either reconverted into accommodation facilities or appraised anyway. Finally, even the social security institutions decided to sell their real estate assets to raise cash.

Now the final impetus comes in most of the central municipalities, those traditionally limited within the confines of the railway ring. There are three sale plans: two from Ater, the territorial company that should guarantee the right to housing, and one from the Municipality of Rome. In 2007, the Capitol launched a plan to get rid of 7,410 apartments out of 24,000: that’s about a third of public housing. Ater has two plans for westernization: the so-called 2021 Lupi Plan (which concerns 7,428 housing units) and the 2023 Prestige Plan (of 3,544 housing units). «In total there are about 14,000 social homes for sale – comments Massimo Pasquini from Unione inquilini – so that if those who live in the house with a legitimate mission decide not to buy the apartment in which they live, these homes will be removed from those available for appointments and put up for auction. The Ater announces in its latest balance sheet that it has done deeds in 2022 for 480 apartments. The 2007 law provides for the sale of 30% of public housing assets: once all sales are completed, the stock of public real estate will increase from 24,000 apartments in the municipality to 16,590 and apartments in Al-Atir from 48,000 to 33,600. In short: in the near future, the number of social housing will increase from 72,000 to 50,000.

Gualtieri’s junta approved a housing plan that appears to be a reversal of trend with regard to the policies of the past 30 years, the effect of which was plans to dispose of public buildings. “This plan is still being implemented – Pasquini explains to us again – it is a beautiful framework that must be filled with content. We need to buy housing, support recovery and self-recovery ». So, on the one hand, the Municipality of Rome wants to finally implement structural policies, although they are still On the other hand, the city has reached an average of eight evacuees per day.There are 14,000 families on the list, a number that corresponds, for fate’s sake, to the number of flats that the various sales schemes are planning to dispose of.