Scampia, the Vele Committee: "The new housing restores dignity to families."

"These new housing units finally represent dignity, normality, the demands we've been shouting from concrete buildings for too many years." This morning, Omero Benfenati of the Vele Committee visited the new housing for the former residents of the Vele di Scampia neighborhood, marking a transition long-awaited by the neighborhood's residents.

For Benfenati, this moment represents the culmination of a long campaign by residents against the degradation and stigma associated with large-scale public housing projects. "Today, we finally see, rising from the rubble of this ugliness, a jewel in the crown for the families who have waited and fought for too many years, claiming a sacrosanct right."

The representative of the Vele Committee calls it an "extraordinary day," but urges us not to consider the process over. "We must continue the fight; we must bring back to Scampia all the families who lived in the Vele, the women and men who fought for thirty years to demolish prejudices and, with them, the concrete monsters."

Some of the former residents, meanwhile, have moved to other municipalities in the province, including the Caserta area. Hence the call to complete the neighborhood's social reconstruction process, going beyond simply assigning new housing.

"Inside those abominations, there were people with dignity: today we're not just talking about having housing, our goal is to have everything, that everything that Scampia has never had," concluded Benfenati.

The new homes thus become, in the Committee's words, the symbol of a transformation that aims to erase the Vele's past not only by demolishing the concrete, but also by restoring services, opportunities, and prospects to the families who have lived in the neighborhood for years.