In the year of Covid it has become increasingly easier to fall into poverty and, in some cases, find yourself homeless sleeping on the street.
This is what happened to Francesco, a 50-year-old Roman, who worked as a hauler: "I have always had a regular life - he tells ANSA - I worked, I went home and looked after my children. I was in the world of antiques, I was moving, transporting any kind. I've always liked my job ".
With the arrival of the coronavirus, however, everything stopped and Francesco, who worked daily, no longer had the opportunity to pay the rent.
He then moved partially from his daughter, but with the shame of being able to be a burden for her and for her family: "I alternated, some nights I slept with my daughter and some nights I went to the street, but I tried to make sure that if you knew, I said I was sleeping with friends. The first night was a nightmare, during the day there is something to do, a bar ... but when night falls you ask yourself 'what am I going to do now? Where am I going?'
Sometimes I used to ride the night buses and when it was morning, with a little sun, I would go to rest in a park. At night there is the fear of sleeping alone, you enter a totally different world, that of invisible ".
Francesco pauses: "That we are not so invisible."
On one of these nights Francesco met volunteers from the Community of Sant'Egidio who offered him a bed in a shelter.
"Obviously it is not that they have the magic wand but we are making a journey", they say from the Community, which helped Francesco to redo the documents and get back on track, until a decisive turning point: a few weeks ago his story was told by Diego Bianchi of 'Propaganda Live' on La7.
Since then, dozens of people have phoned the Community of Sant'Egidio to offer a job to Francis who will start this week as a caregiver in a family.
"In the end - the man says - I told my daughter that I was sleeping in the street, but she had already noticed it without saying anything to not hurt me more. And today she is very happy, for the place I found here in the Community and for the new job. I was lucky. "
That of Francesco is a story with a happy ending, but Sant'Egidio has been sounding the alarm for weeks on the new poverty due to the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic: "This year we have seen an increase of 30% in the presence of Italians on the street ", says Giovanni Impagliazzo, a volunteer of the Community:" Today we end up on the street due to impoverishment and therefore we must make a serious reflection, because there would be the resources to avoid it. We think that the city of Rome could offer the possibility of find decent housing for the people who are facing this problem right now ".
With the cold emergency, Sant'Egidio has launched an appeal to institutions and Federalberghi to open both public buildings and hotels currently closed for Covid to the homeless: "In Rome - explains Impagliazzo - there are 8,000 people in housing difficulty and 1,400 hotels closed ".
Volunteer associations made 1,700 places available: and one of these structures welcomed Francesco at the end of December.
(HANDLE).