The municipality has invested nearly 5 million euros in housing homeless people during the cold winter period.
For the 2025 Jubilee, the municipality of Rome invested nearly five million euros in the installation of four tents intended to accommodate homeless people during the winter period.
The structures, located near the city’s major stations, each have a capacity of 70 people.
Only two of the four tents opened on the eve of the Jubilee
If two of the tents are already open, the remaining two should be ready to welcome the public in the coming days.
“The four capitals will be built. They are progressing as planned and will be ready for the start of the Jubilee”assured the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri.
If the initiative was welcomed by many Romans, social actors point to the need to find a more lasting solution.
“It’s a solution that hasn’t existed for many years, it was greatly missed by people on the street”said Carlo Santoro, deputy director of Palazzo Migliori. “It’s a good thing because it helps people get through this winter phase and we hope that once they have been housed here too, it will be possible to find more stable solutions.
“We should not only think about the homeless in winter, we should also help them when it is not winter and it is not cold. Politicians should understand our conditions and come to us. This It’s not because it’s cold that we think of the poor”underlines Giovanni, a homeless person welcomed by the community of Sant’Egidio at Palazzo Migliori.
22,000 homeless people recorded in Rome in 2022
During the census carried out last April during the “Night of Solidarity” in Rome, nearly 2,200 homeless people were counted.
Data from the National Institute of Statistics collected in 2022 shows a much greater phenomenon of poor housing, recording nearly 22,000 people sleeping on the streets of the Italian capital.
The municipality plans to increase its reception capacities in 2026. “We will also have 250 additional places for the second reception, in apartments, small places spread throughout the city”said Barbara Funari, social policy advisor of the Municipality of Rome
Absolute poverty hits new peak in Italy
The Caritas 2024 Poverty Report highlights that absolute poverty in Italy has reached a new high, affecting 5.7 million people, or almost ten percent of the population. The report highlights that this condition of extreme poverty is not only economic, but also multidimensional, involving factors such as access to housing, health and education.
As the European Parliament points out, access to decent housing is one of the fundamental human rights. On this basis, MEPs called on EU member states, in a resolution of 24 November 2020, to “end homelessness by 2030”suggesting the creation of a European framework for national strategies, for example by allocating more funds at state level.