Over 30,000 popular houses are illegally occupied in Italy, often managed by organized crime. The Security Decree aims to free them and resurface them to those entitled, with an estimated recovery of 43.4 million a year. But without funds and unitary rules, the plan risks staying on paper.
There are over 30 thousand employed houses at stake of the public residential building assets which, if clear and resurfaced to those who really have right and have been waiting for in the rankings, would make a reinforcement of 43.464 million euros per year recover. This is what the Security Decree is proposed, just launched, among the barricades of the oppositions that have boiled as “punitive” and “manager” a tool for the return to legality in a sector that has become a jungle. It is increasingly the ground of conquest and business for the underworld.
The figures of this scandal, all Italian, emerge from the latest study, relating to 2023, created by the Erp-Federcasa Observatory with Nomisma. Federcasa represents 84 bodies and companies that have been building and managed and managed public residential homes for more than a century for more than a century, what were once called IACP. This assets includes 742,600 accommodation, including 63,730 ton (8.6 percent) because they need extraordinary maintenance interventions. Abusive occupations are 4.7 percent of the stock, equal to 31,907 housing units.
The dossier reports that evictions were made in 2023 only 5.4 percent of illegal occupations, or 1,723 properties were freed. Overall, 30,184 remain abusively engaged. To these must be added about 20 thousand residences of private property or belonging to private entities that fall within the phenomenon of “occupations-lamp” or those scored when the owner is absent for a short time, as during hospital hospitalizations, holidays but even in working hours. So we therefore reach over 50 thousand houses hostage to illegality.
“The Security Decree is a useful tool to accelerate the clearing practices, but there is the question of how it will be implemented in practice” says the director of Federcasa, Patrizio Losi. «There are some variables such as the presence of minors, elderly, disabled people, which still make the procedures very complicated. Of course, where there are no these situations, the new rules offer extra help ».
But there is also another rock against which the decree will beat. “The 84 companies that manage public housing are spread over 21 regions, each of which has its own method of managing the assets that is grafted on the common denominator of the national law”. Losi goes straight to the node of the main problem, or the lack of funds. «There is no money for renovations and maintenance. These are financed with the money of the rents that are on average 120-130 euros per month. In some regions there are even fees of only 20 euros per month and the few receipts available are also used for the eviction practices that are expensive ».
By making two accounts, managing to free all the properties occupied illegally, considering an average of 120-130 euros per month lost, with the new leases, after recovering the good, 43.464 million per year could be recovered.
But the public residential heritage is also burdened by the arrears which in 2023 reached 2.6 billion euros, equal to 3,600 euros per accommodation.
The phenomenon of occupations is linked to the spread of crime. In the majority of cases they do not take place at the hands of needy, tired of waiting for public accommodation, but are managed by the underworld that creates outposts there for illegal trafficking. Among the buildings are defined as gangs, the relationships of strength between ethnic groups, the partition of the areas of the city. The kids organize themselves in gangs and “train” to sky the peers. A “gym” to supplant adults. Drug dealing, prostitution, aggressions of all kinds widen radial to the central areas.
The confirmation is in the chronicles of the evictions that bring illegal trafficking to light. The underworld sometimes uses even drones to patrol the buildings and identify empty apartments. A short time of time, the raids of the “raids” armed with peaks, clubs and porco feet to unhinge the doors and allow the new “tenants” to enter. Often they send women, pregnant or with minor children, to make the intervention of the police more difficult.
There are quadrants of the capital who have been in the hands of organizations for years that profit from housing precariousness. The Capitoline administration estimates occupations between 7 and 8 percent of the approximately 30 thousand municipal real estate units – the Ater (of regional competence) in the capital has another 50 thousand – with evident damages for those who would have the right. In Venice “we have 11 thousand houses throughout the province” explains the president of Ater, Fabio Nordio «and 206 of these are occupied. The security decree will need to find an immediate solution ».
In Milan, the occupation of municipal public housing managed by MM, a company controlled by the Municipality, fell to 489 accommodation in 2024, while the year before there were 514. In 2024 there were 46 evictions against 53 of 2023 (data provided during the Casa del Comune Commission on the annual level of residential offer). In the public housing Aler (regional body), between September and October, armed vigilance was introduced, with patrolling services in the courtyards, stairs, cellars and in all common areas, and last April 349 abusive occupations were less than the beginning of 2024.
The occupations-lamps of private homes have incredible stories. Like the one that took place last January in the Zodiac district of Lavinio, in the municipality of Anzio (Rome). The owners of an apartment were forced to pay a sort of good steps to a pregnant Roma woman who in the absence of the tenant, outside for work, had penetrated the apartment.
Another singular case jumped on the chronicles last December: In Florence a 40 -year -old woman, pretending to be a tourist, after booked a house for three days on Airbnb, had refused to go out. The occupations-lamps are the most dangerous because they can go on for months if not for years. It is on these that the Security Decree intervenes.
For the arbitrary occupation of the property intended for the home of others, imprisonment is expected from 2 to 7 years. The legislation on employed properties also includes the start of an emergency procedure for the issue of the property and its return to the legitimate owners. “Finally we intervene on this plague” says the president of Confedilizia, Giorgio Spaziani Testa, which indicates the next challenge: accelerating the eviction procedures. The path of return to legality in the real estate sector is only at the beginning.
