“Look at this one. This is me when I was young. Wasn’t I beautiful?” Naima, a 60-year-old woman from Tunisia, points at a portrait hung on the wall of her two-room apartment – a small space with cooker, table and sofa, and a bedroom – inside one of the biggest housing occupations in Rome, on the street Viale delle Province.
Since arriving in Rome 35 years ago, Naima has lived in this neighborhood. “I stayed in an apartment right there,” she says, pointing to the other side of the street from the window of the occupied building, where she has lived for the last five years.
This building was once used as offices for the National Institute of Social Security, but was abandoned for years. On December 6, 2012, it was occupied by a group called Blocchi Precari Metropolitani (BPM) who fight for the right to housing. That same day – labelled “Tsunami Tour” by activists – eight buildings were occupied around the city.
In just a few months, the buildings became home to people from all over the world: Italians, eastern Europeans, Africans, Latin Americans. Now, around 130 families live in the Viale delle Province occupation, including 60 children – and women are leading the fight for their right to housing.
“My husband and I had a small restaurant near the train station. We had a house and we paid rent. I did not have to worry about where I would sleep at night,” Naima tells me. But things changed: her husband died, she had to close the restaurant and started to work as a carer and domestic worker.
“I passed from one old woman to another,” she recalls. The physically demanding work caused a painful shoulder injury. “So when one old lady for whom I worked died, I didn’t find another job. And I didn’t find a place to live either.”
Naima first noticed the Viale delle Province occupation on a walk around the…