Abstract

The study analyses the current state of housing deprivation in Italy, based on the premise that overcoming it is a precondition for economic and social cohesion, at the heart of today’s political agenda. The Constitutional Court itself stressed that inter territorial equality in the enjoyment of the right to housing must be further guaranteed in the new decentralised structure of powers resulting from the reform of Title V of the Constitution. From the latest Report on poverty in Italy – of which housing poverty is an essential component – comes a marked polarization of the condition of misery, significantly higher in the southern areas. However, according to the argument advanced here, the political strategies undertaken are insufficient, if not counterproductive, to ensure the satisfaction of housing needs with uniformity on the national territory. First, the Pnrr takes a fragmented and non-systemic approach to the issue, focusing on specific categories, without aiming to remove the general shortage of affordable rental housing. Secondly, in the absence of structural measures, the State’s commitment is limited to a variety of Support Funds that the State is not in a position to distribute fairly, due to delays and inefficiencies in the local needs detection mechanism, as well warned in the Corte dei Conti’report. Thirdly, the definition of the essential levels of benefits is inconsistent, if the correct measurement of actual needs is not available. Fourthly, differentiated regionalism – allowing in thesis the Regions to acquire the corresponding competences – would break the link between the location of ERP interventions and the satisfaction of essential needs, stressed by the Constitutional Court. Finally, the growing opening-up to the private market in the social housing sector brings economic and financial capabilities, but does not in itself ensure the satisfaction of mutual claims.