Presentation given by Antonio Tosi, Italy, at a FEANTSA Research Conference on "Homelessness, Migration and Demographic Change in Europe", Pisa, Italy, 2011

1. The Mediterranean model: homeless
immigrants, informal housing, illegal
immigration in Italy
Antonio Tosi
Politecnico di Milano
Interdisciplinary
Center 'Sciences
EUROPEAN RESEARCH CONFERENCE for peace’
Homelessness, Migration and Demographic Change in Europe
Pisa, 16th September 2011

2. Outline
1. The importance of informal housing
2. The frame
3. Living in informal settlements
4. Three questions starting from informal settlements
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3. 1.1. The importance of informal housing
Immigrants in informal housing arrangements: an important
and representative form of homelessness
 informal housing arrangements: numerous and significant of
the conditions of inclusion for immigrants in Italy
 better than the roofless, the inhabitants of informal
settlements throw light on the dynamics of immigrant
homelessness
Living in informal settlements: an extreme form of
homelessness
 a challenge for homelessness classification systems
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4. 1.2. Informal settlements: a substantial and
growing phenomenon
 Tuscany: 1,700 persons living in these settlements in 2010. At
least 2,000 individuals in the last 2 years. 52 municipalities
involved
 Milan: inhabitants of informal settlements estimated (2002-
2008) at between 2,000 and 4,000 persons
 Informal settlements house the majority of adults with no home
(the literally homeless)
- Milan (2003-2008): 60% of the homeless live in shanty towns or
abandoned buildings
Informal settlements house the vast majority of foreigners with
no home (the literally homeless)
- Milan: around 70% of homeless foreigners in these settlements
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5. 2.1. The background
 The Mediterranean model
– a substantial proportion of undocumented immigrants, a large size
of the informal sector in the national economy
– the Mediterranean welfare regime
– the immigration policies (access to citizenship rights and the
conditions required to stay in a country)
 Widespread housing hardship among immigrants
 Structural limitations to inclusion
– the area of marginal housing: substantial and stable
– the polarisation of housing conditions: a system which
systematically excludes a part of the immigrant population
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6. 2.2. The informal at the centre of exclusion
processes and immigrant strategies
 The key role of legal status in determining the homelessness of
immigrants
 The combination between irregular legal status, work in the
informal sector of the economy and accommodation in the
informal housing sector
 The involvement of many immigrants in informal housing
– informal housing: the intervention of community networks
and reciprocal arrangements in providing a place to live;
accommodation in unregulated segments of marginal housing
markets
– a wide range of forms of homelessness other than
rooflessness
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7. 3.1. Living in informal settlements.
A heterogeneous population
 Around 90% immigrants and Roma populations
 A high presence of newcomers, including:
 immigrants from Eastern Europe and Roma from Romania
 asylum seekers and refugees
 But also immigrants who have been in Italy for years
 undocumented migrants
 marginalised immigrants (difficulties of insertion)
 And also groups of Italian homeless
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8. 3.2. Living in informal settlements.
Mainly but not exclusively newcomers and
undocumented migrants
 Milan 2000 – 2004: around 70% of immigrants living in these areas
have been in Italy for a year or less
 But a substantial proportion of immigrants from Morocco and
Albania have been here for over three years: over 20%
 Milan 2000-2006: over 70% of irregular immigrants had been in Italy
for less than three years, over 30% for less than one year
 But the length of time has increased progressively: between 2003
and 2008 the percentage in the country for less than a year fell from
53 to 25%, the percentage for four years or longer increased from
10 to 30%
 The majority of the inhabitants are in situations of irregularity
 Nevertheless persons with documents are also found.
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9. 3.3. Living in informal settlements.
Persons with resources, persons who work
The majority of the inhabitants of informal settlements have a job
and an income
 Milan 2008:
around 80% were in employment, of these, 60% worked in
the informal economy
 Milan 2006:
the employment rate after three years of stay in Italy was
77%: higher than that for both the Italian population (58%)
and the Lombard population (67%)
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10. 3.4. Living in informal settlements.
Long stay in homelessness
An immigrant population which:
 may remain in a condition of homelessness for a long
time (Milan: average length of time spent in shanty
towns of 8-10 years)
 and at the same time has a profile which would imply
a relatively easy progression towards inclusion: well
equipped with personal and motivational resources;
good participation in the labour market, etc.
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11. 3.5. Two different homelessness careers
 Two different paths in homelessness, two different functions of
informal settlements
 homelessness as a first stage in the inclusion process. Life
in an informal settlement: a short period, left behind (fairly)
quickly
 homelessness as a condition that can be prolonged or
occur again. Obstacles to inclusion: mainly the impossibility of
acquiring regular status. Living in informal settlements
prolonged indefinitely.
 The long-term temporary homeless: a common figure among
homeless immigrants
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12. 3.6. The responsibility of policies
The homelessness of immigrants involves different policies:
 The fact that homelessness and informal housing affects
people who have been here for years, people with income
and also regular immigrants indicates the limitations of
welfare and housing policies and the system for the
acceptance of immigrants
 The fact that undocumented immigrants suffer severely
from homelessness and informal housing indicates the
fundamental role played by regulatory policies (management
of legal status and irregularity)
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13. 4.1.1. The place of informal settlements in
the representation of homelessness: are
the inhabitants of informal settlements
homeless?
The majority of those living in informal settlements
experience dramatic conditions of housing deprivation.
Nevertheless there is strong resistance to classifying them
as “literally homeless”. Often they are not even considered
as homeless persons, but persons in conditions of “housing
exclusion”
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14. The inhabitants of informal settlements in
Italy: separate identifications, incompatible
representations
 Traditionally, persons who live in informal settlements
have not been considered as people of no abode (persone
senza dimora): the emblematic figure for homelessness in
this country
 The reason: these settlements are inhabited by
immigrants and gypsies, foreigners and gypsies do not
correspond to the image of the no abode
 informal settlements have been out of estimates of no
abode
 the size of homelessness: severely underestimated
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15. The ETHOS typology and informal
settlements: shortcoming of the conceptual
model?
 ETHOS does not classify the inhabitants of these
settlements as homeless persons, but as people living in
insecure accommodation and/or people living in
temporary/inadequate accommodation – both being
categories of “housing exclusion”
 At issue:
 the rationale for the threshold between homelessness
and housing exclusion
 the internal consistency of the model
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16. 4.1.2. The place of immigrants and gypsies
in the social construction of homelessness:
aren’t these immigrants homeless?
 Immigrants and Roma: a substantial proportion of the
homeless population in Italy. Despite this, they are on the
margins of representations of homelessness: the homeless is
still the local “no abode”
 The lack of recognition and the separation
 reflect the current organisation of services and policies
 help to legitimise of policies for the “no abode”
 represent the relative exclusion of homeless immigrants
from welfare opportunities, and a tendency to shift the
balance of policies from recognition of the citizenship rights to
priority given to control and regulatory measures
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17. 4. 2.1. Illegality, security and urban order:
the overpowering impact of regulatory
policies
 Irregular legal status is the most important single factor in
the determination of homelessness
 Regulatory policies play an overwhelming role in
determining the immigration question and the immigrant
condition
 Regulatory policies: the policies that regulate the condition
for entry and staying in the country and policies for controlling
immigrants and Roma in the community
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18. 4.2.2. Regulatory policies in Italy: security
and urban order
 a negative ideological-political situation (xenophobic
attitudes, crime and security rhetoric) widely supported by
local administrations and central government
 two emblematic figures: the “irregular immigrant” and the
gypsy. Both function as scapegoats, within a logic of
increased security and an idea of urban order
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19. 4.2.3. Security policies at work
 The irregular immigrants
 Regular immigrants vs. irregular immigrants: the rhetorical
device to legitimise the security approach to immigration
 More stringent conditions for access to and residence in the
country; criminalisation of undocumented immigrants
 The Gypsies
 The stake: the regularity of the settlement, the control over
their presence in the community:
 Local policy: dismantling authorized nomad camps and
driving inhabitants out of town; eviction of persons living in
informal settlements
 The rise and fall of the Città sottili project in Pisa
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20. 4.3.1. Living undocumented in the
immigration society
A long time spent as homeless and as an irregular immigrant,
long term exclusion from acceptable housing arrangements, from
official recognition and from citizenship rights. Two defining
frameworks:
 a “growing polarisation” between “residents with full rights of citizenship
and a marginalised class of aliens compelled to work on the periphery,
within a shadow economy”, “confined to menial jobs and relegated to the
worst housing” [Daly 1996]. Undocumented migrants are part of this
“marginalised class of aliens”.
 undocumented migrants have the possibility for permanent inclusion (no
matter how unfairly and not infrequently in violation of human rights) in
European labour markets and societies. Numerous mechanisms (especially
those offered by the informal economy) allow a large irregular population to
live and work in the community in the absence of an official identity
[Sciortino 2011].
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21. 4.3.2. A new scenario for relations between
immigrants and their host society
 A new scenario: a society in which:
 illegal immigration is a long term structural
phenomenon
 illegal immigration has assumed growing importance
and the divide between regular and irregular has
become deeper
 it has become difficult to address irregularity
positively
 The long-term temporary homeless immigrant: the key to
interpreting the relationship between immigrants and their
host societies.
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