Venice is a model of the few. University students protest

“No more luxury accommodation,” reads the banner of the Liberi Sapi Critici (Lisc) student collective, posted in May in front of Venice’s Camplus San Marta, where a room can cost up to €900 a month. The student housing was built near Santa Marta, one of the few social housing areas where real residential fabric remains.

This housing and this model To live is all the contradictions in a depopulated city where students cannot find a home »says Eleonora Sodini of Lisc. The protest came after a year of student mobilization due to the lack of spaces and homes. In May, several public bodies including the municipality, the University of Iuav and Cà Foscari signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the «Venezia Città Campus» project to promote Venice as a student city with «international reach» in order to «train and retain young talents. Advanced knowledge.” “The protocol was not communicated until after it was signed: the decision was made behind closed doors,” says Sodini. “It was in this context that we mobilized.”

In October, the students pitched their tents in the courtyard of Cà Foscari and drafted a document, which they sent to the Academic Senate, asking for places: libraries, canteens, homes. Students claim the right to live in the city. Camplus represents an exclusive and elitist idea of ​​accommodation. Student residences should be instruments of the right to study and not a means of extracting value. It is also for this reason that Venice is increasingly becoming a city of the few.

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residency issue The Venice student has been at the center of unprecedented and important research conducted by two IWAF doctoral students, Valentina Rizzi and Naomi Pedri-Stocco, in collaboration with Osio (Observatory of Urban Housing and Housing). “We distributed a questionnaire to the students, and with a completion rate of 86%, we got 1,081 correct answers. So this is an important survey. In the comments section, we then collected 260 stories. They are adventure stories.”

In May, the researchers, along with Lisc and other participating student groups, presented the first results. «The problems that arise are numerous: from the problem of expelling students from their dormitories to make room for tourists, to services included in the price that do not work, such as broken washing machines. There is a general lack of available beds and housing. Another very sensitive issue is the breach of privacy. Students often have to experience surprise visits from homeowners and staff in residence halls, which is a mental health issue. On the whole, we found a general sense of the impossibility of planning a future in Venice, of living in the city, even after completing a course of studies».

The role of universities, in this respect, totally insufficient. “Only 2% of the students interviewed found a housing solution through the university’s dedicated services.” The picture that emerges is of a growing housing fragility. “Homeowners almost only offer transitional contracts and don’t allow students to reside.” The constant increase in rents, then, is an almost insurmountable hurdle for those who want to live in Venice. The research will be officially presented in the fall. However, the first results speak for themselves: Venice is not a city for students.