Loss of job may be the source of the problem. But to begin with accumulate debts even a drop in revenue due to layoffs or the loss of a customer may be enough. Or one separation or unexpected medical expenses. For some the situation is compromised due to the gambling habitbut also the soaring costs of bills and shopping can ruin the plan to pay the mortgage, and then debt presents itself as the only option.
It happens in Lombardy, in Milan and in the province. Often without relatives, friends or neighbors knowing anything, there is someone who ends up in debt spiral and, not infrequently, gods usury loans. It is impossible to measure precisely the extent of a phenomenon that almost always remains hidden, but in twenty years of activity in support of the victims, the San Bernardino Foundation he worked out some numbers that give you an idea. At the gates of the Foundation established in 2004 by Archbishop Dionigi Tettamanzi and which operates through the Caritas of Lombardy, there were 4,773 people with financial problems and over-indebtedness and for 479 of them guarantee or direct disbursement interventions were developed, for a total of 5 million 803 thousand euros. Resources coming 51% from the Ministry of Finance and 49% from funds 8 per thousand conveyed by the Lombard diocesesintended for the establishment of guarantee funds and various forms of aid.
The main instrument, in fact, are precisely the guarantees that San Bernardino offers to banking institutions with which it manages to stipulate agreements for loans to people who need to repay heavy debts. «We have ensured tangible support for everyone, to prevent them from falling victim to illegal schemes – explains president Luciano Gualzetti -. These are individuals who are not necessarily poor, but are heavily in debt due to not knowing how to manage their money adequately. They are people pushed by the system not to save, but to invest through risky financial instruments; convinced to take out financing plans which at a certain point, in the event of unexpected expenses or reductions in income, prove unsustainable; driven to non-essential and excessive consumption compared to income, marked by compulsive addictions, victims of scams, increasingly online. We prevented them from ending up in usury circuits».
Among the beneficiaries of the Foundation’s support, males prevail, married, with a high school diploma, private employees, with short-term mortgages or loans with an average value of 23 thousand euros or a medium-long term loan of 76 thousand euros, to be repaid with an average monthly installment of 914 euros and which affects over 55% on an average income of 1,148 euros per month. «Usury money is like infected blood – says Archbishop Mario Delpini at the presentation of the Foundation’s budget at the Catholic University – and there is a gray part of society that is tangential to crime». So he talks about the economic difficulties of many in living in Milan and points to politics: “We need solidarity of critical voices, we must challenge the system that generates these situations.”
