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“In Florence there are 20 thousand families in a housing emergency, of which more than half are unable to keep up with the costs of living because 50 percent of their salary is used for rent. Then there are condominiums, bills… for these families, the middle-lower segment, the working poor as we say, the house has become an accelerator of poverty”. It is a merciless picture described by Laura Grandi of the Sunia CGIL of Florence.
If there is something to rejoice at the continuous influx of tourists – which in the last long weekend of April 25 recorded a record 85 percent of bookings made online – in the city where everyone wants to go, and spends, there is also who isn’t doing so well. All things considered, considering that in Florence there are 362 thousand 742 residents and that there are 187 thousand 383 families, just over one in 10 is in a housing emergency.
“Every month there are from 100 to 120 evictions by public force – Grandi underlines – and a studio apartment, if you find it and can call yourself lucky, you can pay 800 euros a month. We receive 150 requests for help per week. They also go to Caritas to ask for rent money as well as food. And there are families who are forced to share a house with others they don’t know, due to too high rental costs.”
Like Giulia, who works as a receptionist in a hotel in Florence and, with her husband and two children, shares the house with another family. There would be dozens of families in this situation. “Going to stay outside the city is very difficult given the shifts at my job – explains Federica – with my husband the only solution we found was to go and stay with another family unit. They are childless, we have two rooms each and a shared bathroom. And we pay 600 euros per month per family with a transitional contract.”
According to a study by Immobiliare.it, in 2024 Florence will be the most expensive city in which to look for a house based on square meters, going from the current 24.5 euros per square meter to 28.90, almost 4 more than Milan. Many blame the high cost of rent on tourism. “Tourism has a huge impact on this – Grandi clarifies – perhaps it contributed 70 percent to creating this situation”.
The turnover dictated by tourism, according to the latest numbers from the Chamber of Commerce, is worth around 5 billion euros for the metropolitan city. In Florence alone it is equivalent to 8 percent of GDP. ”But it is practically concentrated only in the historic center – specifies Nicola Sciclone, director of the Regional Institute for Economic Planning of Tuscany – from an economic point of view, Florence is not a tourist city”.
The historic center, or rather the quadrilateral, reaches an area of 5 square kilometers – out of just over 100 in total – and has 61 thousand residents and around 2 thousand businesses that serve food and drinks. According to Istat data, in 2022 alone it was visited by more than 28 thousand people per day, for a total of 10 million 338 thousand people during the year.
Constantly increasing numbers also thanks to digital evolution, which has allowed bookings of bnbs, rooms and flights. Over the years the offer has increased and to understand this it is enough to look at the variation in tourists between 2005 and 2015 recorded by the Tourist Study Centre, which highlighted a 37.1 percent increase in presences in Florence and which estimated for 2016 the presence record of 9 million and 200 thousand tourists for the entire metropolitan city. A million or more fewer tourists who come to Florence alone today.
A significant turnout that had the city labeled as a “harlot” which will be impossible to make “virgin again” by Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia Gallery, sparking an uproar.
In addition to the “Mangificio”, or as the presence of so many businesses that provide food in the city has been called, there are also many places where a tourist can stay: the numerous buildings transformed into luxury residences, including houses and portions, in city there are more than 13 thousand options just for those who want to stay through Airbnb. ”If we look at the city of Florence – stated Valentina Reino, head of public policies at Airbnb Italia – the total number of houses on Airbnb is negligible”.
Whether it is due to tourism or not, many families and residents have certainly decided to abandon the city. In the last 20 years there has been a real hemorrhage: 148 thousand Florentines have left. In practice 7 thousand every year. ”Of these – comments Chiara Agnoletti, Irpet researcher – 73 percent relocate to the Tuscan territory and 53 to the municipalities of the metropolitan area”. A fact that has spread the problem like wildfire. ”This exclusion from being able to live in the city – observes Grandi – has meant that many Florentines look for solutions in the province, leading to rising prices there too. So the problem has spread to all the neighboring municipalities”.
Neighboring municipalities where in the meantime they would also like to send some Florentine faculties and university students, creating a “widespread student residence” as said by the rector Alessandra Petrucci, given that in Florence a room can cost up to 600 euros a month. ”The rental problem in Florence will not be solved by moving it somewhere else – says Julia Contrino, a university student who went to live in San Casciano in Val di Pesa, about 40 minutes from Florence – and it makes a situation unlivable for everyone, students, residents and workers”.
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Workers like Cristina Porcelli who, from Florence, went to live in Empoli: about 50 kilometers from the city where she works. ”Rents in Florence were too high,’ she explains. Practically a good part of the salary was used for that. You work to pay the rent, you can’t live”.
”With a low income everything is precluded – states Grandi -. It is not just a Florentine problem, but in Tuscany it affects almost all the provincial capitals. In Lazio or Lombardy it is more of a problem for the regional capitals. Here it is from Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, even Versilia. Owners prefer to rent in periods because they earn more, but if national politics doesn’t put their mind to it, perhaps even taking advantage of European funds… If no money comes from the central state it’s difficult for regions and municipalities to solve the problem. And housing is a big problem, like education and healthcare.”
