Cafora, S., Lareno, J., and Vitale, T, « Policies to Decommodify and Revive the Right to Housing in Italy ». Fondazione Feltrinelli, 2024.

A new policy brief by Silvia Cafora, Jacopo Lareno Faccini, and Tommaso Vitale titled « Policies to Decommodify and Revive the Right to Housing in Italy » was published on the page of Fondazione Feltrinelli.

Abstract:

While the Charter of Fundamental European Rights declares that housing is a fundamental good for leading a dignified life (2002, Art. 34.3), in Italy, the right to housing is not enshrined in the Constitution.

The only normative reference is the Constitution’s Article 47, co. 2, which attributes to the Republic the task of favouring the access of popular savings to property.

In Italy, the housing culture is based on the principle of home ownership as the primary source of families’ economic security and as the essential element of a familistic, unequal and not very redistributive welfare system. This is a structural condition sustained by more than fifty years of policies that have reduced intervention in favour of housing as a commons, supporting if anything, the commodification of housing as an exchange good and financial asset.

The decision to convert investments for the production of public owned social housing into collaborations with for-profit entities in the management of public land and real estate assets combined with the sale of heritage for social housing has drastically reduced the accessibility of housing, especially in the attractive cities of the peninsula.

The long cycle of backwardness of public action on housing has led to a process of impoverishment and reduction of intervention tools for housing policies.

In general, especially when looking at attractive cities, what is at stake is the capacity of urban contexts to implement emancipation processes.