Council houses, 250,000 waiting. In and around Milan 60 thousand on the list

Waiting lists forpopular housing line up 250,000 families, all over Italy. With a particular concentration in large urban centres, where the housing emergency hits hardest and cuts more people out of the market. The case of Milan - the most expensive housing market in Italy and, therefore, also the one that excludes the most people - is the most significant: 20 thousand people waiting in the city, rising to 60 thousand if we consider the entire hinterland and neighbouring municipalities. But the numbers are also high in other metropolitan areas: in Rome there are 16 thousand people on the list, in Turin about 10 thousand, in Bologna over 6 thousand.

The numbers of Federcasa, the acronym that brings together 85 entities that, under various names (Atc, Ater, Iacp, Aler, Arca and others), manage public housing throughout Italy, intended for families withlow incomes and in socially fragile conditions. In concrete terms, this means approximately 800,000 housing units housing more than two million people. The data, still partial, are updated to 31 December 2024 and anticipate the Federcasa Observatory, which will be presented in the coming months.

These numbers are characterised by great variability, because the allocation of housing in the different territories is continuous and occurs automatically. They serve, however, to provide orders of magnitude of the housing need. A housing need that, moreover, does not end with social housing. Outside these figures, there are also the waiting lists for students and those for subsidised housing. In short, the numbers with which the government's next housing plan will have to contend are even higher.

And it is precisely the housing plan that Marco Buttieri, president of Federcasa, is looking at: 'Both the European and national housing plan are starting. Within this framework, we have already asked and are still asking for a focus on public housing'. What is needed is support for the bodies that administer this heritage, which can also come through regulatory reorganisation. 'In order to put the budgets in order and do extraordinary maintenance on the properties,' says Buttieri, 'we could, for example, remove the Imu and Ires from the companies that manage them. Public housing is the social shock-absorber of the weakest segment, with average rents of about 100 euro per month. It must, however, be supported, otherwise we risk going into crisis'.

Going back to the national figure, the 250,000 citizens on the waiting list are, at least in part, people who will never have a council house. The reason is that, although they are eligible to apply, their scores are too low to enter the rankings in a useful position. These are, that is, families in a condition of housing distress, with difficulties in accessing the ordinary market, who try the social housing route despite having little chance of obtaining that type of property.