Road emergency

Generally speaking, winter is their most dangerous enemy. And certainly low temperatures are a problem of no small importance for those who live on the street. However, thinking that for them the risks are mainly linked to the cold is a false myth: in our country, unfortunately, people in a state of severe marginalization literally die every day.

The report recently presented by the Italian Federation of Organizations for Homeless People (fio. PSD), which investigated the reality of street deaths, taking a census throughout Italy in 2022 the tragic number of 393 deaths completely upsets the common thought on these facts. The emphasis that, commendably, is placed by municipal administrations and voluntary organizations on the so-called "cold emergency" (which emergency shouldn't be, considering that there is nothing more predictable than the alternation of the seasons on the calendar) has we all have the feeling that the problem lies precisely in the notorious "mercury column" close to zero, and that the solutions are the "cold floors", the expansion of beds in the night shelters, the strengthening of the activity of the units street and so on. All opportune and in many ways fundamental things, and which certainly have the merit of containing the number of winter deaths. Activities that, however, partially deflate when the spring awakens (especially those managed by local authorities, while the third sector has a more continuous action). The result, according to the year 2022, is that of those 393 people who died, 86 died in winter, 97 in spring, 101 in autumn and 109 in summer.

In short, people always die on the street and die everywhere, from big cities (in Rome and Milan the highest numbers) to small provincial towns: last year at least one death was recorded in 234 several Italian municipalities. The main cause of death (46% of cases) is attributable to external and traumatic events: transport accidents (15%), assaults or homicides (9%), but also suicides (8%), drowning (6%), fires (4%), falls and other accidental events (4%). In 37% of cases the cause of death is medical. Hypothermia or overdose affects 11% of cases.

The personal stories are many and all different, but with a common denominator made up of loneliness, severe marginalization and suffering. The phenomenon concerns physically and mentally ill people, often without family ties; it concerns people addicted to substances, who enter and leave prison, sometimes people with a job but who out of extreme necessity found themselves living, and dying, on the street. "Although indispensable - they say from the fio.PSD - traditional services, such as the distribution of meals, clothes and blankets are no longer sufficient: to guarantee those who live on the street and in conditions of extreme vulnerability access to a home, care and paths of social reintegration is the first step in being able to live a dignified life and provide those who need it most with a safety net that can save their lives".


Stefano Caredda
NP March 2023