Ischia – Maria Grazia Buono cries every day, this good and hard-working woman from Ischia has no more tears to shed. The house that has allowed her family to have a roof over their heads for the past thirty years will soon be torn down.
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She has lost twenty kilos in weight in the last few months, she is distressed, desperate and seeks consolation in Prince, her beautiful and very sweet dog who proves to be much more understanding and loving than us humans.
Compared to the rumours that are currently being circulated in Campania demolished first the rough, the uninhabited buildings, the multi-storey buildings and the abuses committed by criminals, Maria Grazia underlines that on the contrary hers is a humble house inhabited for almost thirty years by a family of honest workers.
"We are workers," Mariagrazia emphasized, "we are not criminals. We have always made sacrifices. I have never taken a trip, never a weekend just to make this house." It is such a humble family unit that there is not even the money to proceed with the car demolition.
“I don't have any money. Unfortunately, I don't have any. Who will give it to me? My husband has a heart condition, we live on a disability pension. What should I do? I'm going out into the street. The mayor of Ischia didn't care about us. He didn't even call us to say where you're going, what's happening? This is Ischia, our Island. Shame”.
Maria Grazia's house is disarmingly simple, with just the bare minimum needed to live a dignified life. There is the little that over the decades has been afforded to have a family of honest workers. Mario, her husband, a worker, speaks of the injustice he has suffered and with extraordinary and human altruism, he hopes that other families will not have to suffer the same pain they have.
"I - Mario said - after forty years of work, I have always been a worker, after many sacrifices made together with my wife who has made more than me, the gift that in the end I received from the State, from the Institutions, is to knock down my house. After many years of sacrifices that I have made and I am a heart patient because for all the jobs I have done I have suffered tragedies, and the only thing I had, the house, they are knocking it down. This is a great injustice".
Then Mario, aware that the fate of his house is sealed, explains that he is not doing the interview for his case, but so that other families do not have to live through their same drama. “I am not doing this interview,” says Mario, “to be blamed or to have pity because I will leave this house with my head held high, compared to the State. I will go to a rented house if I can afford it. But I want to say one thing.
I am doing this interview for others, so that other people do not fall into the same desolation as me because we are becoming sick in our hearts. Therefore, we need a reaction and to take to the streets”.
Even the twenty-seven-year-old Luca, a university student and son of Mario and Maria Grazia, speaks with great bitterness of the injustice he suffered and the lack of respect for the Constitution.
“I was born here,” Luca said, “I’ve always lived here, this is my home. And now it’s hard, but we have to give strength to our parents. Seeing our parents like this is really hard. I’m trying to be so strong, but it’s really difficult. I myself am having moments where I feel weaker, more vulnerable.
I think we are suffering an injustice. Because it is an injustice to take away a first home knowing that the application of Article 25 of the Constitution is failing, which says that for the well-being of a citizen there must be a home. But I am taking courage thinking that there are many people who love me, who care about me and who are showing me closeness”.
The voice of the committees for the right to housing
The eviction of Maria Grazia's house is scheduled for next February 25th. Meanwhile, citizens and committees for the right to housing, while underlining the utmost respect that we have for the Judiciary that applies the Law, forcefully ask for the intervention of politics that only through the approval of a Law of Parliament can put an end to this authentic social tragedy resulting from that phenomenon, such as building abuse, generated in the last forty years by the policy of municipalities that by not approving the necessary urban and regulatory plans have not given anyone the possibility of having a building permit to build a home.
And if we think about the fact that on the island of Ischia there are about 10.000 houses that have urban planning irregularities that, if demolished, would leave thousands and thousands of Ischitani broke, thus creating an unprecedented social and housing emergency, then we should stop for a moment to think about how to find a political solution and begin, finally, to demolish the buildings of the large-scale building and business speculation with which the coasts and hills of the Campania region have been destroyed.
Otherwise, the State, which in recent decades has not guaranteed anyone the right to have a home by completely blocking the construction of affordable and public housing as well as not issuing building permits, should work to draw up evacuation plans and build alternative public housing to house those demolished.
Because the Law is the Law and must be respected, but the State, with respect to those citizens to whom it should have guaranteed the right to housing and has not done so, cannot continue to look the other way and pretend that nothing is happening, leaving thousands of women, children, elderly and disabled people, who are all honest and irreproachable citizens, broke from one day to the next and who, in many cases, if anything, have the only "fault" of having inherited a bit of a house from their parents or even grandparents who are now deceased.
Gennaro Savio
Article published on 4 February 2025 - 09:27
