What is the Diffused Student Housing Project?

Starting from May 2023 for several weeks and then again in September 2023, numerous students camped out in front of some universities in the largest Italian cities in protest against high rents. The high housing costs, in fact, do not allow many out-of-town students to find an adequate solution in the city where they move to study. The first to demonstrate was a student from Bergamo, Ilaria Lamera, who on May 4, 2023, pitched a tent outside the Politecnico di Milano, living there for just under a week. « Milan's costs do not allow students with normal families to rent rooms, » she told Repubblica. Following her example, eleven tents were added in front of the Polytechnic, and other groups of students began to protest in similar ways in many other cities in Italy. The housing emergency present in many large Italian centers particularly affects out-of-town students, who are unable to access university residences - often there are not enough places or, when they are managed by private individuals, their prices are not as accessible as advertised. The issue is particularly serious in Milan, which is the Italian city with the highest rents: according to surveys by research institutes, an average rent for a room in the Lombard capital is around 800 euros, compared to more or less 600 in Rome and 500 in Bologna.

The "Diffused student housing project" of the Municipality of Milan

In an attempt to respond to the shortage of student accommodation, last September the Municipality of Milan presented a measure to increase the number of student accomodations. Called the "Diffused student housing project", the plan envisaged creating 600 new beds by the 2024 academic year at a rate of between 250 and 350 euros per month, redeveloping over 300 apartments in public housing complexes. The target was not met, and it was recently announced that renovation work on the selected units will start next September. Councilor for Housing Pierfrancesco Maran had specified that these are currently empty apartments, which must be completely or partially renovated at the expense of the municipal administration between 500 and 600 euros per square meter. The diffused student housing project should be financed with an investment of between 10 and 15 million euros, an initiative that aims to be financed through the funds made available by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). In recent months, the Municipality of Milan had anticipated the financing with a total sum of 12.5 million euros which could then be integrated with the PNRR funds, which allocates 960 million euros to economically support the creation of 60,000 beds for university students throughout Italy by 2026.

The problem of student housing in Italy

Today in Italy there are only 40,000 student residences compared to about 600,000 out-of-town students - 210,000 of these live more than two hours away from the city where they study. This means that every year many students remain outside the student residences, despite meeting the requirements established by the bodies for the right to study. Less than 5% of Italian students live in these facilities, compared to 12% in Germany and 30% in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the spread in many cities of the phenomenon of short-term rentals, intended for tourists, is making it even more difficult to find accommodation for students. In Milan there are currently about 11,000 beds available, between public and private student residences, and the 600 that would be added with the Municipality's initiative would increase the offer by just 5.5%. Even if the plan will not in fact be enough to solve the problem, the student representatives had nevertheless said they were partially satisfied with this first step forward - stressing that the renovated apartments must not be taken away from disadvantaged families or other people in need.