Enforcement proceedings and lack of institutional support leave an elderly couple homeless. A 73-year-old couple from Pieve di Livinallongo forced to live in a car with their animals after losing their home due to a debt of €3,900. The institutions do not offer help.The drama of spouses abandoned by local authorities and social services. A social and legal short circuit that undermines citizens’ trust in the institutions also responsible for helping the weakest categories.
LIVINALLONGO Following an enforcement procedure, two citizens were evicted from their homes. They live in cars, in the silence and immobility of institutions and associations. An elderly couple (73 years old each and a wife with psychiatric problems), lost their home due to an initial debt of 3,900 euros which triggered an enforcement procedure on their only home. Since June 19th, the lock on their home from which they were removed was changed and they currently live in the car with their animals (1 dog, 2 cats and canaries). Despite reminders and reports, the institutions were unable to find a place to temporarily host them and were unable to provide any form of help. At the origin of the delicate and now completed procedural process is an appeal presented by a company that in 2018 had carried out construction work at the home of the two pensioners. Work which – according to the two elderly people – had not been carried out in a workmanlike manner: the bill was in fact only partially paid to the carrying out company. Since then, a debt recovery procedure of around €3,900 has been underway which – year after year – has led to the house being put up for sale, the only property owned. Other debtors then joined this procedure, resulting in the known consequences. The main fault of the two elderly people is that of having turned to legal support after the procedure was already completed. The two elderly people receive a minimum social pension, but not enough to afford a rental contract and the related security deposit necessary to ensure its stability. The savings that will have to be returned to the couple following the enforcement procedure are still frozen by the Court of Belluno: despite the urgent requests filed by the Dotta & Partners Law Firm of Agordo who sponsors the two elderly people, to date an extension has been granted to the release of the property which expired on June 19th, effectively leaving the two elderly people on the street and without sufficient funds to afford accommodation. Since the court did not authorize the payment of a deposit on the credit of the enforcement procedure in favor of the elderly, to deal with the delicate situation, last Wednesday the eviction was made official by removing the family from their home. The searches conducted by the couple and social workers over the last month, aimed at finding emergency accommodation, have not led to the desired results. In the meantime, the social bodies responsible for assisting the two elderly people have been activated, without there having been any valid alternative solution to the delicate and precarious living situation of the spouses in the last month. The couple urgently needs a house and a support administrator who can deal with the enforcement procedure in order to use the sums owed to them for daily needs, in order to afford accommodation and have the necessities of life. The requests for intervention addressed to the previous administration of the municipality of Livinallongo del Col di Lana, to the Parish Priest, to the social services who have not found a structure that can accommodate them, were of no avail. Now they wander by car looking for a temporary paid solution, but they cannot bear the costs required on a daily basis, especially in an inflated period like the summer. A hypothesis in terms of accommodation had arisen with the assignment of a Red Cross house through a public tender announced by the Municipality of Gosaldo in which the couple had participated. However, the property is in a state of abandonment, lacking essential systems and requires major renovations to make it habitable: the couple certainly cannot take on such interventions. Despite their lawyer’s requests to negotiate a medium-term economic agreement to renovate the property, the house was assigned by the Municipality to the next winners in the ranking, without addressing the delicate situation of the two elderly people. The situation, now known both to the institutions and to the social services of the Caprile district, is still unresolved. The couple needs help, a house at a subsidized price while waiting for the appointment of the support administrator and the release of the sums owed.
