“A serious mayor goes where the problems are and tries to solve them”. The former Minister of Economy said so Roberto Gualtieri, now a leading candidate in the center-left primaries, about the confrontation between the candidates organized at the Spin Time Labs. The occupied building in via di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, where hundreds of irregular people live, has risen to the headlines several times for raves and abusive parties, and for having accumulated a debt of over 300 thousand euros for electricity bills, for which the Pope’s almsgiver, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, had also taken the field.
For this reason, many had expressed doubts about the advisability of carrying out the debate between the candidates in what on more than one occasion proved to be a real “fort of illegality”. To tread the hand, via social media, in recent days, was the leader of the Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. “I wonder with what courage certain political forces – who are candidates to govern the capital of Italy – can erect as a symbol those who do not respect the rules and make illegality their flag”, he wrote on his Facebook page. “What do you say, – he added in another post – some journalist will ask the fateful question: what is your recipe for fighting illegal and illegality in Rome?”.
“Thus the idea that the occupations are a trivial fact. Which is not acceptable “, the center-right candidate for mayor had also commented, Enrico Michetti. So much so that to talk about “slip” for Gualtieri was also the senator of the Democratic Party, Andrea Marcucci. “The Roman Democratic Party – was the appeal entrusted to Twitter by the parliamentarian Dem – must protect its candidates more.
Today at the microphones of The Air that Pulls Summer, its La7, the person concerned defended himself by saying that “in the capital the hardship and housing precariousness concern thousands of people” and that “a way out of this problem must be found”. “The current eviction plan – he attacked – did not work, it is cleared but at the same time an alternative solution must be found”. From the stage of the Spin Time auditorium, the same where abusive parties have been held over the years, without authorizations, licenses and rigorously tax-free, Gualtieri had pointed the finger at the Raggi administration, accusing it of having “waged a real war against world of associations, voluntary work, the third sector and the private social sector “. In short, if not an assist to social centers, little is missing.
“On the house we have the duty to realize a great pact of the right to housing, of ownership” with “an extraordinary plan for social housing”, has continued. It is necessary to pass, according to Gualtieri’s proposal, from the “model of the plan evictions approved to the house-by-house model, creating an alternative “. To the microphones of La7 the representative of the Democratic Party continued to beat on the issue of the home emergency. “In recent years, the housing policy has been held firm, there are 55 thousand families in difficulty and housing precariousness, 11 thousand people in the ranking that does not flow to have a house”, he denounces. He speaks of “criminal occupations, which must be firmly opposed”.
But he defends Spin Time Labs. “In that place there are hundreds of people, of children and in fact they have not been evicted because it is not possible”. “The right to property – he explains – it must be able to be fully exercised but if in contrast with the right to housing it happens that evictions cannot be done “. A questionable thesis. But in this way, one might say, the occupants of social centers such as the one in Via di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme can rest assured. With all due respect to legality.
To attack Gualtieri on this point is also the 5 Star Movement. “For him the poor are only in friendly social centers, a stone’s throw from the center of the capital? It is truly incredible how much he and his party are unable to free themselves from that radical chic mentality that has imprisoned them in the LTZ, and made them unable to see the real social emergencies that afflict Rome, like many other Italian cities “, attacks the Senator from Grillina, Giulia Lupo, who claims the work done by Raggi. “The party for which Gualtieri is a candidate for the primary – he concludes – has governed this city, where occupations have flourished that are often oriented more to profit than to help those who really find themselves homeless”.