Bristol         Over the years, I’ve been to Sicily a number of times.  It’s a wonderful place in so many ways with a generous people, unmatched virtually anywhere in the world.  Palermo, the Simeto Valley, Paterno, and another towns and cities across the island have all welcomed me, but nowhere more than Catania.  Over these many years, we continued to knock on the door to build ACORN there, but were always thwarted by one thing or another, usually money.  Over the last year, we have doubled down on our commitment to “hell or high water” make this happen.  One of our colleagues and comrades spent several weeks in training in Leeds, England on the basics; Craig Robbins, our field coordinator, has lent a hand; and on this trip I stopped by for several days, between Sofia and Bristol with a brief jump over to Malta, to work with the team, and see if we could lock down the turf for several organizing drives. In the process of driving the city with Francesco Nicotra to look at various prospective neighborhoods, I also got an education in the urban and housing policies of the area which are almost as difficult a mountain for tenants and apartment owners to climb as Mount Aetna, the fiery volcano still looming over the city, largely build on its ashes and lava.

In looking at the low-and-moderate income housing blocks in one area we were targeting with more than 3000 units, a number of issues were obvious.  The buildings and towers were constructed in and around 1970, and more than fifty years showed on them, as age does on all of us.  Most of the residents came originally as part of a relocation program forced by Catania’s version of urban renewal.  The housing authority and social housing cooperatives had moved people into this area and facilitated them becoming owners of their units.  Working with a longtime friend and colleague who is a professor at the University of Catania, we looked at her database and could zoom in and see the characteristics building by building.  Of more than 3300 units, only 100 were now occupied by tenants.  The authorities had structured this development on a condominium model, so coop owners, like in a HOA in a South Beach condo, were responsible for all common areas and structural refurbishments and retrofits that these buildings now require.  Like much of Catania, there is no working sewage system which is exacerbated by heavy rains and basement flooding and has pulled everything into underground rivers and then to the harbor creating a fecal dead zone.  Fixing that and so many other problems would mean spending a pile of euros, but who can afford that?  Under the city and regional rules, the authorities would only be responsible if more than 50% of the building were eligible public housing tenants, which was the case nowhere from what we could see of the numbers.  We could likely respond to some of the owners’ issues dealing with garbage, the inoperative community center, utilization of public space, and so on, but dealing with climate change, sewage, and flooding issues will entail huge campaigns that we can’t pretend to imagine now.  Much of the challenge here involves unintended consequences of public policies that might have seemed praiseworthy and innovative then, but now are very problematic, where there is still “more month than money.”
There is also a large constituency, reminiscent of what our United Kingdom affiliates face of access to affordable units for rent or purchase in Catania for younger people in their 20s and 30s, trying to stay in the city.  If these young folks find love and want to leave roommate land and get a place together, once again what should be good news confronts another problem.  Landlords don’t want to rent to young couples for fear that they might have children.  Italian law effectively blocks eviction of families with children.  What a great thing, right?  But landlords fear that they could be saddled with nonpayment, where there is no recourse to evict in those cases, because for years and years they would be tied up by the law and in the courts.  In this catch-22, they are not discriminating by refusing to rent to a couple, but if they do rent, and there are children later, they’ve potentially adopted the whole tribe.  Does this mean we could organize tenants citywide, like we do in Scotland and England?  Maybe, but we haven’t refined the model well enough yet?

One way or another, we’re going to make ACORN Sicilia finally happen, but that doesn’t mean anything will be easy.