Self-recovery and Self-building: Forms and policies of a new public service for social housing

Renovating for residential purposes aims at shaping the innovating, sometimes conflicting ideas which are generated from society into the form of partnership and at making more profitable state investments combining townplanning policies with the social, residential and economic ones and, consequently, controlling the many factors which originate social exclusion and city degradation.

Among the different long-term purposes, people to whom the work is awarded are expected to be more inclined to share the planning and building, and also be stimulated to upkeep the building in the future; moreover, the use of technology which is compatible with the environmental sustainability (bioclimatic housing, for instance) aims not only at disseminating it, but also at training skilled workmen.

The Ministry for Social Policies together with the councillorship for the Policies for Suburbs, Social Development and Labour of the Municipality of Rome has organized an international convention on 5th April 2007 to discuss and compare the various practices in Italy and in some European States; to begin a wide program of renovating, going beyond the experimental stage and making it become not only an important part of the public service housing in favour of those citizens which are excluded from public residential housing and from state assistance for acquiring house, but a possible instrument for housing policies supporting the social integration of immigrants and roms.

The program