Brescia. With the cry of «Public housing must be assigned not destroyed», the demonstration took place on Friday 21 June protest by the Rights for All Association, Collettivo Gardesano Autonomo and CSA Magazzino47 in front of the now empty space where the Tintoretto tower in Brescia once stooddemolished in 2022 as part of a social housing project which never took off and which veered towards a plan “B”, much discussed and contested in the city.
According to the association, «195 public housing units have been removed from the city: 195 public housing apartments is a very high number for Brescia, a figure practically equal to the housing available in the last two Aler tenders (94 last year and 115 this year). Among them there were also very large apartments necessary to accommodate large families.”
«Since 2016 – explain the activists – we have been fighting against this unjust culling, we have organized dozens of meetings, assemblies and demonstrations, denouncing how the case of Tintoretto were just the tip of the iceberg. Between Brescia and the province – the Association reports – there are in fact 6246 SAP accommodations, of which only 5664 are occupied, 161 are free and can be assigned, 252 are vacant due to lack of maintenance, and 169 are vacant due to renovation. So, at the moment, out of a total of 6,246 homes, only 5,664 are occupied, while there are 582 vacant, almost one in 10.” In the Brescia area there are “1159 families on the list waiting to have a council house”.
«Even for those who have public housing, conditions are continually worsening: increasingly obsolete apartments, seriously insufficient maintenance and ever-increasing expenses make the current situation unacceptable: a national plan for the right to live with adequate investments is needed.”
According to Rights for All, «Now more than ever an adequate number of public housing is also necessary, the insufficiency of the latter has led to with the increase in evictions and increasingly precarious living conditions, many families, despite having an income, are now forced to occupy to have a roof over your head.”
The Rights for All Association particularly contests the Meloni Government’s decision to launch «yet another security bill, which criminalizes every form of bottom-up self-organization and, among other things, provides for very heavy penalties – up to 7 years in prison – for those who employ a house, for an anti-eviction picket, for those who simply fight alongside those who don’t have a roof over their heads.”
