Social housing, the company Milano Cortina enters

The Società infrastrutture Milano Cortina 2020-2026 (Simico) enters the Piano casa. The decree approved last Thursday by the Council of Ministers, in fact, assigns it a central role in the first leg of the plan, the one dedicated to public housing: the company will have the task of assisting the government's extraordinary commissioner in the implementation of all the measures related to social housing.

There are two tracks on which the part of the Housing Plan dedicated to public and social housing is moving. On the one hand, there is maintenance: the Ministry of Infrastructure will activate the necessary resources to ensure the adaptation of approximately 60,000 housing units throughout Italy. These are those that are currently unfit for habitation, which according to the MIT's objectives will have to be renovated within a year. A total of 1.7 billion euro will go into an ad hoc fund managed by Invitalia. On the other hand, however, there is also a section devoted to social housing, i.e. the redevelopment of existing public buildings to be allocated to weaker individuals who do not have access to public housing, such as students, young couples or workers (see article opposite). Here the resources will be more, about 4.3 billion already earmarked for urban regeneration and in the belly of local authorities. In all, therefore, about 6 billion euro will also be earmarked for this type of property, which will be identified through mapping.

Together with the extraordinary commissioner, Simico will also act on this double front. 'For the exercise of his duties', in fact, the commissioner 'will also make use' of the infrastructure company Milano Cortina, as the provision explains. This is a change of skin for the company, which, in addition to managing the construction of the sports facilities for the Winter Olympics, is still dealing with a number of major infrastructural works that have yet to be completed. Two of them stand out: the Longarone and Cortina variants, worth a total of almost one billion. Neither of them has been completed and, indeed, both still take a long time. They could be closed by 2033, but there are many uncertainties. Even in Lombardy, the most expensive works will not be ready in beve, and are costly. Here are the main examples: the Trescore-Entratico bypass, worth EUR 48 million, could be completed in 2029; the Sondrio bypass, worth EUR 43.5 million, will be ready in October 2027; the Vercurago bypass, worth a good EUR 253 million, has been postponed due to hydrogeological risks. In addition to these road works, there is also the intervention involving the elimination of the level crossings insisting on the state road 38, relating to the Sondrio Tirano railway line: a work worth 66 million that should be ready in April 2027.

 On the public housing front, it is worth mentioning that the decree on the Housing Plan introduces a revolving guarantee fund to support public housing tenants in difficulty. The measure aims to cover the risk of non-payment of rents and also the security deposit, in cases where delinquency derives from causes not attributable to the tenant. The initial endowment is EUR 22 million for 2026 and EUR 20 million for 2027, with resources also fed by a share of the rents paid by the assignees themselves.