For decades, residents have campaigned for relocation and fair housing for all

Evacuees from a massive housing project in Naples, Italy, have occupied rooms in the Federico II University, after the collapse of a pedestrian walkway on Tuesday left two members of an extended family dead and a dozen injured. Seven children aged between two to 10 were among the injured, and two remain in intensive care. Authorities have evacuated 800 residents from the building in Scampia and prohibited the use of pedestrian walkways in other sections of the complex.

The Vele di Scampia committee, who for decades has campaigned to resolve the structural problem of public housing blocks in the neighbourhood, has set up aid points together with activists from the Mezzocannone Ocupato social centre. “Entering the University was an obligatory solution to give refuge to hundreds of people who had to deal with an unprepared and unequipped rescue machine”, said the committee in a statement. According to a spokesperson, “we are asking for quick solutions to this emergency and structural decisions for the long-standing problem of the residents. We cannot be on the streets”.

Mayor Manfredi has declared a day of mourning for the day of the funeral. The Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation, but Il Mattino newspaper could already report that “officials did not think there was a connection” between ongoing construction work at the base of the housing complex and the balcony collapse.

The Vela Celeste is one of the last three residential buildings left standing in the Scampia neighborhood, after the other four were demolished between 1997 and 2020. Last April, the Manfredi administration announced an 18 million euro plan for the “urban regeneration” of the only Vela that was not supposed to be demolished, the one whose balcony collapsed. The committee has for years campaigned for replacement housing and the demolition of all three buildings. A few months ago they occupied the Pantheon in Rome in protest.

Now, the anger of the evacuees, housed under tents near the building, is growing. Yesterday afternoon scores of residents occupied rooms of the nearby Federico II University in protest. In its statement, the committee added: “For years in every demonstration, at every occupation, at every road block, in every meeting we have been shouting to all the institutions that ‘there is no time to waste’…We have built a model of self-determination capable of rejecting the negative narrative that we were ‘ugly, dirty and bad’, but above all we have protested all the delays, because we never, ever wanted to reach the point of having to mourn the dead. In these hours we will relaunch the mobilisation. We won’t let another second be wasted”.

~ Uri Gordon