Piazza Maricarmen: Italy's housing fight spreads to Rome :)

A tent camp outside Termini station in Rome renamed the square Piazza Maricarmen Abascal on 15 October to protest the housing crisis and the rising cost of living. Italy's housing movement points to the government of Giorgia Meloni's Housing Plan, which it says makes evictions easier.

The square in front of Termini, Rome's main railway station, has since 15 October borne a name that appears on no official map: Piazza Maricarmen Abascal. The name was chosen by a mass assembly called after a demonstration for the right to housing, and the renaming was more than symbolic. Dozens of tents occupied the space that same day. The camp remains there, with daily assemblies and an open microphone for student movements, unions and neighbourhood committees.

The chosen name is no accident. The organisers explained that they wanted to amplify the message sent from Spain and turn the place into "the square of dignity." That was said at the assembly by **Paolo Di Vetta** of the Blocchi Precari Metropolitani, a veteran of the capital's housing movement. The reference to Maricarmen was presented as a tribute to "so many men and women in this country who have been thrown out of their homes without the solidarity of any institution," in the words of **Maria Vittoria Molinari** of the tenants' union Asia-USB.

## 33,000 evictions and 74,000 repossessions in a year

The figures the movement cites help explain why the protest has caught on. According to the data Molinari quoted at the assembly, **33,000 evictions** were recorded in Italy in **2025**, and **74,000 people** who could not keep up their mortgage payments had the homes they lived in repossessed. These are figures from a country where rents have risen **33% between 2020 and 2026**, according to the same source, while wages and pensions remain among the lowest in Europe.

Rising fuel prices have added pressure: they triggered an uptick in inflation that makes it even harder to make ends meet. Property speculation and the spread of tourist rentals are squeezing the market, especially for young people on precarious contracts, who end up moving out of the big cities. The pattern of evictions is shifting: they are falling in the most populous cities and rising in small and medium-sized towns, so the crisis now reaches those who left regional capitals seeking relief.

## Meloni's Housing Plan and the evictions law

The main target is the Housing Plan of **Giorgia Meloni**'s right-wing government. The researcher and activist **Margherita Grazioli** told the assembly that the plan offers property funds the chance to make major investments while, in parallel, pushing forward an evictions bill that, in her view, "will cause a social bloodbath." The bill would allow landlords to outsource evictions to private security firms, create a national register of defaulting tenants —which the activist says would stigmatise for life anyone who has struggled to pay rent— and impose a **50-euro-a-day** fine on tenants who refuse to leave a home they are being evicted from.

Di Vetta added another nuance: the plan envisages renovating and delivering **60,000 non-habitable social housing units**, but is running considerably behind schedule. While that drags on, in his reading, the government seeks to attract investment from large international property funds that would build many homes for a market of rising prices, with an obligation to reserve a small percentage for low-income people. Grazioli summed it up: for years now, public housing and national plans have ceased to be an option for those facing the housing crisis because governments have prioritised the interests of developers and property funds.

## From the square to the general strike of 30 October

The camp does not want to remain a neighbourhood protest. Its stated goal is for the various struggles to converge into a common platform ahead of the general strike called for **30 October** by the grassroots union USB, which coincides with the international mobilisation of port workers. The protest demands higher wages and rights and rejects the increase in military spending.

Also present at the square are the drivers of lorries carrying food and goods who, for weeks, have been blocking dozens of roads and motorways across southern Italy, leaving supermarkets without supplies. The coming together of tenants, students, unions and hauliers draws a front that goes beyond housing. Di Vetta framed it with a distinction: "Our adversaries are not small landlords, but the big speculators and the companies that own hundreds, thousands of homes and evict tenants without caring about what happens to the person thrown onto the street, sometimes to make room for tourists."

## Rome is also selling off public assets

The crisis is not explained only by what the central government does. The researcher **Chiara Davoli** calls the housing policies of Rome's mayor, **Roberto Gualtieri** of the Democratic Party, "ambiguous." She acknowledges that the city council claims to defend the right to housing, touts the purchase of **one thousand homes** put up for sale by the private Enasarco foundation, and has submitted an offer to buy from the manager Investire the building that for years housed the occupation known as Spin Time, evicted last summer. But, according to Davoli, the administration works constantly with major investors: in March the mayor and two councillors attended Europe's biggest property fair in Cannes to promote investment in Rome by offering the city's public assets.

The body that manages the capital's social housing has put about thirty of them up for sale in the city centre, while unmet social housing demand stands at **300,000 families** who have been waiting between ten and 15 years. Davoli cites concrete cases: the **60-year** concession to the US property giant **Hines** of the former general markets to build **2,000 student accommodation beds** at around **one thousand euros a month**; the transfer of a former barracks and a bus depot to private parties; a new stadium that would clear four hectares of woodland next to a hospital; a large private port in Fiumicino run by Royal Caribbean and the US fund iCON; and an incinerator with a high environmental impact. Her diagnosis: private capital is replacing the lack of public funds, and the city ends up being shaped by investors' interests rather than residents'.

Housing is a matter that affects the pockets and rights of thousands of people; any decision about rents, mortgages or evictions should be discussed with a professional or with the relevant social services.