Against the expensive rents beds and help from private individuals

Giving a roof to university students is "our daily bread since the settlement" and now that the protest of the tents against the high rents has reached the front pages of the newspapers, the Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini is keen not to be seen unprepared. And he assures that today it is "a necessity" for the government to find, and quickly, "as many available properties as possible, between now and June 30, 2026". Also, he stresses, with a "public-private partnership, provided for by the PNRR": a choice, this to involve private individuals, for which "I take responsibility". Words that, however, do not convince the students: "Until we see something concrete - their spokesmen say - we will not stop the mobilization".

Bernini speaks during the first meeting of the Technical Table convened at the Mur. The Regions, the ANCI, the rectors participate (there is among others Antonella Polimeni of Sapienza). There is the mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri with his councilor for the House Tobia Zevi, there is the Lazio Region with the councilors for local authorities Luisa Regimenti and the University Giuseppe Schiboni, in addition to the director of Disco Lazio (the body for the right to study) Giuseppe Pontillo. And then there are the protagonists of the protest, the boys of the National Council of University Students. That raise the stakes: to solve in a structural way an emergency that arises from the lack of investments in recent years, the figure needed is 3 billion euros: "We need more investments - explains today the Udu, the student union that in 17 Italian cities has promoted the protest of the tents - The minister has said several times that with the funds of the PNRR more than 8 thousand new beds will be created but, To read the provision well, it is not so: those really created from scratch will be about 3 thousand, the others will be those not yet surveyed by private individuals. We ask for clarity and for the PNRR to be amended by introducing stringent public controls on the management of private funds".

Local authorities, meanwhile, are organizing to use all the tools at their disposal to meet the needs of children. The Lazio Region, for example, which annually assigns bonuses for rents and housing in student housing, has abolished the figure of 'eligible non-winners'. It is clear, the representative of Francesco Rocca's council observed at the table, that the main solution is to use PNR funds to build housing, but "time is needed: we will have to focus on other more immediate measures, starting from the increase in the number of beneficiaries of the housing voucher, from the remodulation of the guarantee fund for rents and from finding housing in religious institutes".

The other line of intervention, with which the government has involved local authorities is the notice published by the Mur on the census of public buildings to be converted into university residences. "It is not an idea of today - remarks Bernini - it is not linked to the protest of the students, we were already working on it regardless of the mobilization".