Squatters occupy empty buildings in Venice filled with tourists

Venice - Squatters are occupying empty buildings in Venice in protest against high rents driven by endless crowds of tourists pushing families out of the city, Reuters reported today. While the city on the lagoon had a population of 175,000 after World War II, today it has around 50,000. They complain that their city has been taken over by tourists, but the locals bear the costs of cleaning and maintaining it.

Venice is visited annually by approximately 25 million tourists, of whom 14 million stay for just one day. About 8,000 apartments are listed by the international online rental platform Airbnb.

Forty-one-year-old Nicola Ussardi occupied an empty apartment in the Cannaregio district in 2013. He lives there with his partner Nadia and their two children. He helped establish a group that assists locals in finding housing.

He claims that in Venice there are empty houses from which people have been forced to leave. They then cannot afford to renovate them in order to rent them out. Local authorities, on the other hand, declare that activists occupying them are preventing renovations.

"There are no houses here for the rich, the less wealthy, or even the poor. In Venice, there are houses only for tourists," says Ussardi, who sells souvenirs from his stall near St. Mark's Square.

He makes between 800 and 1300 euros (about 20,500 to 33,300 CZK) a month. Rent for a family of four in the center of Venice averages over 900 euros (more than 23,000 CZK).

"We want to fight against the fact that there are thousands of abandoned apartments in Venice by moving into them, repairing them, and making them livable again," says thirty-four-year-old Alessandro Dus.

While Venetians do not want tourists, who bring profit to the city, to completely disappear, they are trying to cope with the consequences of the endless influx of visitors, just like other popular historical cities.

Recently, the local council voted that this year, day-trippers will pay three euros (77 CZK) to visit Venice, and the fee will be higher in subsequent years. It is planned that from 2022, tourists will have to book their stays in advance.

Raffaele Speranzon, who manages the local housing authority, claims that the office has funds from the region for apartment renovations, but cannot use them because they are occupied. "They are often passed around among friends who do not take into account those who want to follow the rules or obtain an apartment legally," he says.