How the Milan Eviction
The pandemic transformed the relationships between tenants and landlords on a scale not seen in decades. Suddenly, tenants felt compelled to take a stand for themselves and resisted evictions. Where before tenants feared and even hated landlords, now they were pushed to the point of rage and self-reliance.
The eviction moratorium did not stop evictions entirely, but it made it much harder for tenants to be evicted without legal cause. Tenants were required to demonstrate that they had been at a significant health risk, as a result of the pandemic, in order to claim rent relief.
But the CDC’s moratorium didn’t stop all evictions, and there was a continuous stream of self-evictions, harassment, and illegal evictions throughout the pandemic. A House committee report released Wednesday charges four corporate landlords, The Seagull Group, Pretium, Invitation Homes and Ventron Management, with a combined 15,000 evictions during the pandemic.
How the Milan Eviction Moratorium Works
It’s unclear if there will be a dramatic cliff or wave of evictions as the moratoriums are lifted, but we venture to guess that they will be spread out and on a smaller scale than before.
It has been reported that the eviction of a group of Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers from a building on the Bacula overpass in Milan was carried out in August without any advance notice or other arrangements for adequate alternative housing. The majority of the people who lived there left on the 19th, but others remained to protest.
Some families have managed to find safe and legal places to live in the city, but for others, such as the Al Badaui family, their eviction is still imminent. The family consists of Ayman and Abir, Maram, Mariam and their little Samer. Ayman works as a cleaner at the airport and Abir takes care of their children, although she does not speak Italian.
In March 2011, the government of Italy announced the “Roma Emergency Measures,” a decree that gave prefects across the country the power to conduct full censuses of Roma and Sinti, identify them with fingerprints and photographs, expel or remove people who do not have Italian nationality, and evict displaced Roma living in so-called nomad camps. The measures were intended to be temporary and to provide Roma and Sinti with assistance and shelter, but have instead resulted in severe hardship for both Roma and Sinti in Italy.