Other
possibilities
Due to the lack of housing resources available to
undocumented migrants, the way people find a roof (to avoid sleeping on the
street or in a train station) is up to their own imagination when they don’t
have family or friends to stay with, are unable to find a space in a charity
organization or lack an income to pay rent.
Paying for a room in a cheap hotel is a common practice. They may find the money to pay by
working in black or begging and then sharing a room with one or more persons. In
Brescia (Italy), the police recently did an eruption in a hotel that was full of
undocumented persons.
In different European countries, both north and south,
Eastern Europeans have found shelter in caravans. In Italy, many gypsies (mostly undocumented) live in
caravans on the fields of local councils. Many of these people were living in
houses in their country of origin. In some European countries (e.g. Austria),
living in a caravan on city outskirts is almost impossible due to the police not
allowing it.
In Italy and Spain, many shanty-towns
lie on the outskirts of large cities. The ‘popularity’
of slums is likely to be due to the warmer climate of these Southern European
countries. In the past only gypsies used to live in slums around big Italian
cities (such as Milan and Rome), though recently an increasing number of Eastern
European migrants (Polish, Ukrainian and Rumanians) are doing the same. In The
Netherlands some people find shelter from the rain by building some shanty type
residence with scraps or by living in car boots or tents, though these practices
aren’t common at all and aren’t proliferating there.
In all six interviewed countries, squatting is a tendency in large cities, though people living in
squats often run the risk of being denounced to the police by their
‘neighbors’. According to Edda Pando from Todo
Cambia, around 15% of undocumented migrants in Italy squat abandoned houses,
buildings and cars (which aren’t difficult to find in or on the edge of large
cities) for shelter. She considers squats, together with flats rented from
slumlords, as the types of shelter most used by undocumented migrants. Here are
several examples of squatting in Italy. A house in Milan (Casa
di Via Adda) is presently being squatted by gypsies as a place to live as
well as a sign of protest. Some of the inhabitants came from land that was
invaded by the police. After the invasion, some were thrown out of Italy, while
others escaped and went to this house.
Also in Milan, one year ago three hundred Moldavians were discovered living in a
factory. Presently, several refugees seeking political asylum are squatting an
old factory in Rome
that has become a self-governed space that includes homes, a library, a shop, a
canteen and a bar.
These solutions for shelter are the least official.
They are among the most used, but are the most insecure due to their
particularly poor sanitary conditions and uncertain duration (caravans and
squats may sometimes not be so insecure in one way or the other).
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