Ferrara Life can resemble a sheet of ice, sometimes all it takes is a moment to slip, fall and get seriously hurt. Luca and Andrea have both crossed the insidious threshold that quickly led them from a normal situation to an existence on the margins. And at a certain point both of them found themselves wondering: “But what am I doing here?” Andrea Guzzinati, Turns 63 on Monday, slept in the car for two months; Luca Franceschini, 55, spent six months in the dormitory. The first worked for more than forty years as a bricklayer and is now retired; the second is employed by Tosano. For both of them, the rebirth came through the Mai Da Soli association which offers hospitality and support to people who, after a separation, find themselves in financial difficulty. The recovery was accomplished to the point that they now wanted to transform their experience into redemption, to give after receiving and to make themselves available to the community by committing themselves publicly. From here, they explain, their decision to run with Action in the next local elections was born.
«This is the eighth election campaign I have attended – intervenes the president of “Mai Da Alone” Stefano Ferrari, for many years employed at the Municipality’s electoral office – and I have never met two such moving candidates. I am very proud of them and of the journey made through the association that welcomed them in a truly unhappy moment.”
Andrea and Luca’s stories are frightening in their own way, because they make you understand that it doesn’t take much for life to take a slope that drags you down, destroying you.
Fall and ascent
Andrea Guzzinati has three teenage children with his partner with whom he lived from 1998 to 2023. Last year marked a double turning point: he retired and the relationship with his partner, already in crisis, broke down definitively with all the problems related to a separation when there are also children involved: “I left home, and between maintenance payments for my three boys, one of whom is disabled, and extraordinary expenses, my pension money was no longer enough.” Before managing to enter the Casa Mai Da Alone, in March, his home was his car: «I slept in the car and during the day I helped out in a restaurant, finding support from people I wouldn’t have expected from. so much solidarity. I also realized how much hidden poverty there is in Ferrara: in the parish of Don Andrea Zerbini, at the distribution of bread and other foods, there were people who if you saw them on the street you would never suspect of being destitute. A condition that I myself, having worked for 44 years, found myself having to face.” Andrea had never had experience in politics «but I have always been involved in social work, especially in the disability area, and the desire to help those in need intensified after having suffered so much suffering». Even while he was fighting for himself, Andrea turned his gaze to others: «In the restaurant where I went there was a waitress crushed by many personal problems that she couldn’t solve. Thanks to Stefano Ferrari and the association’s lawyer Raffaella Vingianowho are special people, this girl is now following a path of psychological support with the association.”
He himself now dreams of being able to afford accommodation, even a small one “where I can host my boys, with whom the bond remains very strong, when they come to visit me”; in this regard, Mai Da Soli is working on the establishment of a New Rentals Office with a surveyor, an interior designer and a condominium administrator to help guests settle in with favorable conditions. «I chose Action – concludes Andrea – for the attention he has shown for social issues. If I were to be elected I will work to increase the number of beds for the poor, no one deserves to see their dignity trampled upon.”
Luca Franceschini has a job and a family: one child from his first partner, three from his second. For him too, the separation opened up an abyss: «I pay 1,200 euros in alimony a month, and the salary is not enough. The house belongs to my ex, and when I left in the spring of 2021, by my own decision anyway, I couldn’t even afford rent.”
Reciprocate aid
For a month Luca lived in a hotel «for 50 euros a day, and when the money ran out I spent a couple of nights on the street, wandering around Bologna. Then I remembered that the Viale K volunteers came to the hypermarket where I work to collect the “ugly but good” products and I went to them to seek help.” Luca thus spent six months at Villa Albertina: «In those days I thought: is it possible that all this is happening to me? Did he end up in a dormitory? It’s also an excellent structure, I felt comfortable, but the trauma remains.” It is the social worker who directs Luca to Mai Da Soli where he enters in December of the same year and where, day after day, he is putting the pieces of his life back together: «Of course, you have to adapt and live with others, but you feel at home , you are free to manage your time, without timetables, and friendships are born among the guests. Above all, after seeing the worst, you discover that there are people willing to help you and this is also why I wanted to accept the proposal to run: to give back a little of what was given to me.”
