“I want to say just one thing to Ilaria Salis and to anyone who thinks like her about occupations. They should experience, at least once, the sensation of returning from work, the hospital, the supermarket and seeing that the key no longer opens the door to your house, that someone crawled into your bed and got rid of your clothes, cleaned out the fridge and threw the furniture out the window like it was garbage. They should feel, at least once, like a ghost. Just like I felt when I called the police and they told me to go back to my life, to wait until it was possible to vacate the apartment occupied by complete strangers”. Umberto spoke to Adnkronos, a 59-year-old tenant of the public housing in Quarto, in the province of Naples, who, commenting on the declarations of the newly elected Avs member of the European Parliament Ilaria Salis, recounts his odyssey: 9 nightmare days, forced to sleep in the car, after his house it had been occupied by strangers while he was at work. According to his own story, it was Francesco Emilio Borrelli, deputy of the Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra, the same party as Salis and Fratoianni, who helped him return. in his apartment in record time, 9 days in fact.
Umberto doesn’t want to be harsh on Salis: “I don’t wish harm on those who justify squatters, I simply wish them to find themselves in the same shoes that I found myself wearing one morning six months ago”, he says, before telling his story : “It was last November. Like every morning, I went to work. I deal with small construction jobs, so I left early. After half an hour, a neighbor called me warning me that three women with children in tow they had occupied the accommodation regularly assigned to me. We always warn each other, because it happens all the time that we are afraid of leaving, even for a short time, and of not being able to return to our own home.”
Umberto explains that he immediately called the local police and the carabinieri, while he was on his way home. “The women who occupied my apartment had done the same thing seven years earlier in another house, but in that case the tenants were no longer there and the children who lived elsewhere were not interested. But I only have that one home… and when I found myself outside I had to sleep in the car, terrified that they would throw all my things out the windows. I disconnected the utilities but they were turned back on immediately, I was told I had to be patient… To me, who slept on the street with the squatters inside my house for nine days. I didn’t feel protected, guaranteed. They told me I had to wait for all the procedures, if it hadn’t been for the Honorable Borrelli I would still be out of the house.”
Francesco Emilio Borrelli, in Naples, is a point of reference for those who suffer this type of abuse. He had already supported the battle of an elderly couple in Herculaneum, and supported Umberto, helping him to regain possession of the house. When asked by Adnkronos, he does not want to comment on the statements of his party colleagues, and limits himself to saying laconically: “I won’t comment. I carry on my battles. It’s not that there is all this inspiration and support. I have these battles always faced alone and I will continue to deal with it alone.” (by Silvia Mancinelli)
