The homeless in Italy

According to 'Istat survey on homeless, fio.PSD and developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and Italian Caritas, are 50.724 homeless people estimated to be in Italy 2015. These people live in extreme poverty or in a condition of deep discomfort associated first of all to the lack of a house as an intimate place of refuge and, tied to 'material goods interweaving of poverty for subsistence and personal fragility multi-dimensional and complex

The observed sample is composed of people who, according to ETHOS classification (Italian, French, English), living on the streets or in the night shelter services

The 2/3 homelessness declares to be registered at birth, and to have a Residence in an Italian town

The average profile of homeless people has accounted for most of men (85,7%), 4 on 10 are Italian, 4 on 10 are chronic or living on the streets for more than 4 years, more than half are immigrants from other countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Albania, Romania), They have an average age of about 44 years and live mainly in the regions of Northern Italy (56%)

The women represent 14% homelessness (6.239), but follow the details and more characterized by the breaking of family relations walks of life as the main cause of homelessness (Read the study on Homeless Women)

"Homelessness" is not synonymous with "welfarism". Only the 3% say they receive subsidies by municipalities or by other public entities

The 62% instead it has a monthly income from work (also uneven and irregular) with a average monthly earnings between 100 and 499 Euro, While the 30 % lives by his wits and collette. The 17% It has no source of income

Only the 14% people are not able to respond to the interview, because of problems associated with physical or mental disabilities, substance addiction or alcohol, or to the limited knowledge of the Italian language. This "portrait" instead is the one most often found in media archive images or who answers the common feeling. The population of the homeless has rather many shades. The cause and the factors of vulnerability look alike (loss of job, of health, family are breaking events prevailing says Istat). but Earlier living conditions show that two-thirds of homeless people had a home. Just becoming homeless is one of the major risk factors, away from the trouble of paying the rent up to the eviction real or the difficulty of keeping housing costs, conduce verso la homelessness (see 3° sull'Housing Report Exclusion in Europe)

The life stories however are unique and each follows its own path as shown by the collections in the two images Workshop Photo Homelessness and Housing First

A part of the survey Istat has also been devoted to the analysis of street Services, which provide mobile services in places frequented by the homeless, that they have always represented the service of proximity par excellence (read the deepening of the Working Group "Street work and Residence”)

in 158 Municipalities surveyed, They were surveyed 229 Street unit, a third operating in Nod-West, while Lazio, with 49 Unit (48 of which are active in Rome), is the region with the greatest number of services, followed by Lombardy (47), Piedmont (20), Veneto and Sicily (in both 16 YOU), and Sardinia (15)

These other data as may be used to better understand the phenomenon of homelessness in Italy, but they served primarily as a knowledge base for writing Guidelines and to distribute ministerial and European resources. Indeed, at the level of social policy and advocacy, the investigation has become the reference for the distribution of public resources in support of a new strategy to combat the serious marginalization