CREMONA – Allocation of Aler housing to women victims of violence It is an experimental project relating to the identification of housing for women victims of violence, which started in 2023 and is taking shape these days, the implementation of which involves organizational and management aspects triangulated between Lombardy region, Aler Brescia-Cremona-Mantua hey Anti-violence centres with territorial jurisdiction.
«For us volunteers at the Aida Anti-Violence Centre this is a transition very important because it recognizes a years-long battle by the centers to assign homes to victims of violence. There is no autonomy if you don’t have a place to stay and very often women who are victims of violence are forced to leave the family home alone or with their sons and daughters — they explain Elena Guerreschipresident of Aida and Simona Frassivice-president and coordinator of the project —. In Cremona the project is intended for two women followed by the center and who have been on a path to escape violence for some time, for whom the acquisition of housing autonomy constitutes a very important goal».
The project will involve the Aida Anti-Violence Center for the next five years as the recipient of the leasing and management of everything concerning the assignment of the apartments themselves. «As an Anti-Violence Center we hope that this is the start of a virtuous reality, which partly fills the sense of profound injustice suffered by women who are mistreated and even forced to abandon their homes for reasons of their personal safety and that of their children”.
The Region and Aler project outlines a path to provide a response to the housing problem of women victims of violence: once the path towards independence is over, in fact, for many of them it is difficult to find decent housing at affordable costs in the private market, especially for the foreign women. «But the merit of this project also lies in recognition of the strategic role of Anti-Violence Centres, who is responsible for identifying the recipients of the project and the implementation of the action – they add -. The Anti-Violence Center, rightly, comes recognized as a protagonist of policies and actions to combat and prevent violence. Our role is central because we are not only one of the first places of reception of womentherefore able to promote the emergence of the phenomenon, but thanks to our work and our peculiarities, we can collect the requests of women by putting in place all the tools, resources, projects and actions necessary for the positive outcome of the paths of exit from violence, in coordination with all the subjects of the Network”.
«In the last five years we have worked in constant contact with the public services at various levels and with the private realities of the territory that deal with violence against women: we have renewed the management of the shelter, opened a new home for semi-autonomy (both registered in the regional register), we built important relationships with social services by activating micro-team work to ensure greater effectiveness in integrated management, we participated in Lia projects aimed at job placement, we organized numerous awareness projects mainly in schools but also with the municipalities of the territory and the companies, and the list of activities could still be very long. Finally, it should be remembered that in these months we have inaugurated the new headquartersto guarantee women a more welcoming space and to have a more suitable environment for the work we do. In essence, the project with Aler and the Region is only the latest in a long series of activities that the Aida Association created for the protection and support for women victims of violenceall thanks to the generosity and skills of our operatorsmostly volunteers. At the moment, the most ambitious project we have in mind to carry out, as soon as we manage to intercept suitable calls for tenders, is that of a new hospitality structure intended for the placement of women in emergency situations», conclude Guerreschi and Frassi.
