Pesaro 2024. Living Pact: the Municipality and the local realities together "to support the weakest groups".

Surgeries «to push on the agreed rent, commit the Marche Region to restoring the rent fund (cancelled since last year), increase the rental offer». It's still, «the census of the residential units in the area and their regeneration; the conversion of hospitality/commercial structures into accommodation and support for social housing" but also «Counteract of illegal construction and measures to guarantee the safety and well-being of the most vulnerable inhabitants». These are some of the actions envisaged by the Living Pact, an agreement made between the Municipality, through the Sustainability and Cohesion Department, and the local entities involved in the issue, which set themselves the objective of "developing new policies", aimed at “support the social groups most exposed to the economic crisis and the acceleration of living costs”.

Not those who are already in the care of Social Services, therefore, but the new "grey band", «An “intermediate” group, made up of those who would be able to pay the rent but are unable to do so» explains Maria Rosa Conti, councilor with responsibility for housing policies who points out: «Pesaro is a city with very qualified welfare policies and it was a duty to try to address them also to those who need a service for the "home good", a critical issue which, at a national level, has percentage rates between 20 and 40%". For this reason, the Administration, through the Living Pact, has started a «"Mixed" partnership which also intervenes on the private offer, aims to improve the offer of the agreed fee and to intervene on the supply-demand imbalance, altered by the tourist vocation of the area. We will try to find new financial forms to act in this area and carry out a census of the public and private assets of the residences. A photograph that will indicate the best path to take to deal with the housing crisis."

The local entities involved in housing policies signed the Pact together with the Municipality: CARITAS Pesaro; CISL Marche Pesaro-Urbino section; SICET MARCHE - Tenants' Union for Home and Territory (CISL) Pesaro-Urbino; ​​SUNIA Pesaro – National Union of Tenants and Assignees (CGIL); FIMAA Pesaro-Urbino – Italian Federation of Business Agents; FIAIP – Italian Federation of Professional Real Estate Agents; CGIL Pesaro-Urbino; ​​UNIAT Pesaro – National Union of Tenants for the Environment and Territory (UIL); CONIA Pesaro-Urbino – National Confederation of Associated Tenants; TENANTS' UNION of Pesaro; ERAP Pesaro Urbino.

The new projects will provide support to families for their access to rented and owned homes; they will involve private individuals, including in public-private partnerships, to promote the interventions; they will aim to improve the efficiency of public entities; they will implement policies to redevelop public residential assets; will apply innovative financial instruments.

The Pact provides for monitoring of the interventions, which will take place with the "Living Tables" which will meet at least 3 times a year, and will provide for ongoing checks of the actions and measures initiated, also suggesting additions or corrective measures to be carried out for the three-year duration of the Pact, the signing of which, Conti specifies, «it may be extended to other public or private entities operating in the housing sector».

Anna Baldella, of the CISL Marche section Pesaro-Urbino, underlined «the value of the method adopted by the Pact, which guarantees the commitment of the various parties involved in the document who, by setting a time limit, will be able to provide answers and make useful assessments to activate concrete interventions". Roberto Rossini, provincial secretary of the CGIL, recalled «that the Government and Region, since last year, have eliminated the rental fund» and which the Pact certifies «the commitment of the local realities to housing welfare, on which the Municipality has continuously activated», see the rental fund envisaged by the Administration together with the trade unions. Also relevant for Rossini is the «topic of public building regeneration» and the tied one "to safety which also includes the recovery of degraded areas of the city".

The provincial secretary Sunia Gabriele Belfatto, photographed the issue linked to "seasonal" rentals, which «It is disrupting cities with the explosion of short-term rentals to the detriment of long-term ones. A trend that also influences urban planning choices." Sabina Fucili, from Sicet CISL: «In Italy, there are 5 million empty apartments. A figure that demonstrates the size of the rental problem. The hope is that the Pact brings innovation, in terms of responses, to our territory." Tommaso Andreani, provincial president of Fiaib, said: «The issue involves us daily in our business and is raised by both tenants and owners. This is also why we immediately embraced the proposal of the Living Pact in which we will bring all our experience to try to raise owners' awareness of long-term rentals". The property census, for Simona Baldocchi of Fimaa, «It will be a first step from which to start and to be pursued vigorously to verify the status and number of empty apartments that cannot be intercepted and included in the offer». Maria Teresa Turla, Caritas Pesaro: «The Poverty Observatory has been reporting to us for years an important critical issue in the area linked to housing, and it is nice to be able to address it together. The multiplicity of actors involved in the Pact will be able to provide a response to the territory."

The 6 lines of intervention of the Living Pact

There are 6 lines of intervention envisaged by the Pact to achieve the objectives shared by the signatories.
The first is that of "Housing Welfare" and is aimed at the gray or intermediate band of families who are unable to access solutions on the free market or social residential housing. The actions include initiatives to disseminate the agreed fee; the commitment to find community, national and regional financial resources to be redistributed with the direct disbursement of the contribution to the owner of the property; the commitment to ask the Marche Region to restore the financing of the rental fund; greater information on accessibility, concessions and better conditions for taking out mortgages for the purchase of a first home.

The second line of intervention is that of the rental housing offer, to increase the public and private rental offer in the municipality, starting from the census of the units present.

The third is that of the regeneration of public residential buildings, to strengthen it as a driving force for regional housing policies to support and respond to housing hardship. The updating of the ERAP database and of the Municipality's housing (occupancy and maintenance status) is expected; the request to the Region for funds dedicated to the maintenance and finding of new housing; the count of vacant accommodation and a recovery plan for the same.
Building Planning will propose incentives for interventions that increase the availability of social housing and significant public housing policies with the strengthening of interventions to support social housing.

The fifth line of intervention concerns information for citizens to be strengthened with digital platforms, with integrated communication, with initiatives "built" together with associations, unions, studios and professional bodies, to provide information and services to citizens.

The document also underlines the due attention to the theme of "Safety and sociality", because taking care of the home means taking care of the people who live there with the improvement of the living and safety conditions of the communities. For this reason the Pact proposes activities to combat illegal construction; care measures for older inhabitants and the most vulnerable; promotion of initiatives to encourage the responsible use of housing stock by users, also with attention to energy saving and the use of common spaces; projects regarding linguistic mediation, cultural integration, aggregation, and similar.

The operational methods on which the Living Pact will operate are also described; in-depth meetings will be organized on the specific themes, in which the signatories and the public and private entities identified on the basis of the topics addressed will be invited to participate.

The document aims to constitute a proactive and planning stimulus for a new common commitment to housing policies.