Access to housing is a fundamental necessity for everyone. However, long-term processes of deregulation, privatization, financialization and a general dismantling of welfare state systems have jeopardized access to housing for more people. The economic and financial crises of 2008 and the consequent austerity measures have further accelerated and deepened these trends. _x000D_
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In December 2014, Social Log, a social movement that was mobilizing in Bologna on housing issues through anti-eviction actions promoted the occupation of the former headquarters of Telecom, the former state-owned telecommunications company, which had been empty for 12 years and was owned by an international investment fund. The building, which was exactly opposite the new headquarters of the Bologna municipality, was occupied by 76 households, a total of 280 people, including 103 minors, who had previously been evicted from their homes. The ex-Telecom experience ended on October 20th 2015, when a massive police deployment, after a day full of tension and charges, completed the eviction of the building. Most of the families, thanks to the negotiation promoted throughout the eviction day, found a solution, often definitive, through the intervention of the social services of the municipality of Bologna. The building has been later converted into the ‘Student Hotel’, an expensive residence for students. _x000D_
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However, for a year, a previously empty building became not only the home of these families but also a political laboratory. Through the slogan ‘Housing, income, dignity’, the ex-telecom occupation put the housing emergency at the centre of the public debate in Bologna and became an experiment in which migrants and local families, students, and precarious workers, lived together building a community and a political space based on mutual support and struggle for a radical and alternative housing model.

Gabriele D’Adda
Università degli Studi di Catania

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ID Abstract: 364