Mr. Umberto, 56 years old, tenant of the public housing in Quarto, in the province of Naples, had occupied his house while he was at work. For nine days he had been forced to sleep in the car, until help arrived from Francesco Emilio Borrelli, deputy of the Green and Left Alliance. The same party in which Ilaria Salis plays, who immediately after her election to the European Parliament claimed to have been active in the housing movement and to have occupied a council house in Milan. At Adnkronos, Umberto addresses the activist himself: «I want to say just one thing to Ilaria Salis and to anyone who thinks like her about her occupations. They should experience, at least once, the sensation of returning from work, from the hospital, from the supermarket and seeing that the key no longer opens the door of your house, that someone has climbed into your bed and got rid of your clothes, he 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.”
The alarm from the neighbor
Mr. Umberto recounts those complicated days last November, when «like every morning, I went to work. I do small construction jobs, so I left early. Half an hour later and a neighbor called me to warn me that three women with children in tow had occupied the accommodation regularly assigned to me.” Umberto says that this is now a practice among tenants of public housing, aware of the risk of suddenly finding themselves in the situation that he himself experienced. «We always warn each other – he added to Adnkronos – because it continually happens that we are afraid of leaving, even for a short time, and of not being able to return to our own home. And that time it happened to me.”
«I slept on the street for nine days»
While he was hurrying home, the man notified the local police and the carabinieri. Then the discovery that whoever occupied her house had already tried it with others: «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 children who lived elsewhere were not interested. But I only have that house… and when I found myself outside I had to sleep in the car, terrified of the idea that they would throw all my things out of the windows. I disconnected the utilities but they were reactivated immediately, I was told that 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 that 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.”
Borrelli’s solitude
On the case of Ilaria Salis and her positions on the occupation of public housing, party member Borrelli avoids commenting. Over the years as a regional councilor, Borrelli has worked alongside several cases such as that of Umberto, such as the elderly couple in Herculaneum. All cases of public housing tenants who from one day to the next found themselves without the possibility of returning to their apartment. After Nicola Fratoianni’s defense of Ilaria Salis’ statements, Borelli says with a hint of bitterness: «I carry on my battles. It’s not like there’s all this inspiration and support. I have always faced these battles alone and I will continue to face them alone.”
