Housing problem

There's a silent emergency sweeping our cities: the housing crisis. It makes no noise, yet it affects the lives of thousands of families, young people, and workers. Public housing, always a refuge for the most vulnerable, is inadequate and often dilapidated; many remain empty due to lack of funding and bureaucracy. Waiting lists are interminable, procedures are slow.
But today, the "problem of problems" no longer concerns only the poor.
More and more people, despite working, are unable to access decent housing. Job insecurity and a loss of purchasing power make it difficult to rent or maintain a home: those without solid collateral are priced out of the market, while many tenants are unable to afford the constant rent increases.

On the other hand, even those who would like to rent find themselves discouraged: owners, discouraged by bureaucracy and limited protections, prefer to sell or leave their properties empty. Cicsene has collected 17 concrete reasons for this lack of confidence, a sign of a stalled housing system, with too many empty homes and too many homeless people.

The Bishop of Bergamo reminded us: "The future of the city is a home for all." But the reality tells a different story: students lost in the jungle of rents, young people giving up jobs due to a lack of housing, businesses unable to find homes for their employees.
Where there are houses, there are no jobs, and where there are jobs, there are no homes.

"Generosity is needed, not as charity but as a sense of belonging to the community," said the Bishop of Milan: the right to housing cannot be governed by the market alone; a balance must be struck between profit and solidarity, between private interest and the common good.
Alongside this ethical reflection, however, the responsibility of politics remains evident, which too often fails to translate the protection of the right to housing into concrete action or delegates to the private sector a response that requires public responsibility. We need quality housing plans, consistent with the Constitution, that restore existing housing stock and make renting safe and sustainable. Securing housing is not just an economic act, but a civic choice. Restoring the centrality of housing means building fairer and more cohesive cities, where every person can feel part of a community. Because today more than ever, housing is a measure of justice, economic balance, and social cohesion.

Gianfranco Cattai
NP November 2025