Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi said Friday that she requested military barracks be made available to help the capital cope with its housing emergency during a meeting with Interior Marco Minniti. "(I proposed) that barracks be made available, which have accomodation facilities and could be used to bring down the waiting lists," Raggi said. "Let's not forget that over 10,000 people have been waiting over 10 years for a house in Rome". Friday's meeting comes after a police operation to evict hundreds of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers from a building near Termini Station where they had been squatting for years caused alarm. The migrants clashed with police when they were cleared out of a nearby square, where they had camped for four days. Aid agencies and leftwing politicians said the migrants should not have been evicted, and subsequently moved on, without alternative lodging being provided. The evicted migrants reportedly refused lodgings outside Rome because it would have meant moving their children out of schools and being split up. Italians on housing lists for years regularly claim migrants are being jumped past them.
Minniti and Raggi held talks in a "fully constructive atmosphere," a joint statement said. The pair agreed on "the importance of inter-institutional cooperation, like that taking place with the regional government, to address the issue of the housing emergency, migration and reception policies, setting respect for the law and humanity as priorities" the statement said.
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