Abstract

Young Italians are among the last to leave their parental home in Europe: cultural aspects and lack of policies able to support this transition combine to bring about late residential autonomy of new generations. Housing policies not only are and have being modest and fragmented but they were also concentred on supporting access to homeownership with instruments and means that changed over time. In other housing regimes, on the contrary, policies created intermediate solutions that not necessarily led to property, responding in this way to needs that in young age can be very diverse. In this article we illustrate why today is necessary to pluralize the ways of entry in the housing market and we describe programs and projects that try to enhance housing independence for young people in Turin and Milan as well as their main logics. The focus is on those interventions that create affordable rent opportunities resulting from public and private actors collaboration which is considered to be crucial for the development of effective opportunities. The analysis shows that young people housing needs entered the local public agenda but dedicated resources are still very few and that implemented projects present some criticism. In Turin policies tried to mobilize the private market providing incentives in order to strength the position of young people as tenants and invested in co-habitation as a sustainable way of living for this target. In Milan young people deserved attention mostly in new social housing projects. In both cities the insertion of young people in deprived neighbourhoods through affordable housing opportunities was used to increase social mix.