Rome's Housing Crisis: A Call for Regional Cooperation

Tobia Zevi, Councillor for Heritage and Housing Policies of Rome Capital, declared: 'We have learned from the newspapers that Ater Rome, also to balance the budget, would be intending to sell several hundred houses in various districts of the city. However, we must admit that the housing emergency is increasing, and indeed it is increasingly taking on the characteristics of a real social drama. From this point of view, it is necessary to expand the public housing stock, as Rome Capital is already doing, and not reduce it. For this reason, I put forward a proposal: let's re-convene the table opened with the Lazio Region, then governed by Nicola Zingaretti, and try to transfer the ownership of all available housing to the Municipality, without privatizing a piece of public city. We had already envisaged this in the Strategic Plan for the right to housing, approved last July, and in a special Council Memorandum, so we can really proceed. This is an important opportunity to lighten the long list of those who have been waiting for a house for years, and also to show that institutions can collaborate with each other regardless of political colours, in the interest of the most vulnerable citizens.'