MOI: an opportunity for inclusion and regeneration in the city of Turin
Can a project promoting inclusion for vulnerable people become added value for the whole community? The MOI initiative is a public-private partnership addressing the needs of the inhabitants of 4 occupied degraded buildings in Turin. More than 800 people were transferred and accompanied toward independent housing and working solutions. The buildings were liberated, renovated and transformed into a social housing project for students and youth, giving the area back to the people living there
Regional
Italy
Turin
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2023-01-31
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo Type of organisation: Foundation First name of representative: Alberto Francesco Last name of representative: Anfossi Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Secretary General Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 75 Town: Turin Postal code: 10128 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 011 1563 0120 E-mail:alberto.anfossi@compagniadisanpaolo.it Website:https://www.compagniadisanpaolo.it/
Name of the organisation(s): City of Turin Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Monica Last name of representative: Lo Cascio Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: Department Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Piazza Palazzo di Città, 1 Town: Turin Postal code: 10122 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 011 0112 5520 E-mail:monica.locascio@comune.torino.it
Name of the organisation(s): Prefecture of Turin Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Raffaella Last name of representative: Attianese Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: Deputy Prefect Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Piazza Castello, 201 Town: Turin Postal code: 10124 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 011 55891 E-mail:raffaella.attianese@interno.it
Name of the organisation(s): Piemonte Region Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Osvaldo Last name of representative: Milanesio Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Sector manager Policies for equal opportunities, rights and inclusion, planning and social innovation - Health and Welfare department Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Piazza Castello, 165 Town: Turin Postal code: 10124 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 011 082 4222 E-mail:osvaldo.milanesio@regione.piemonte.it
Name of the organisation(s): Ufficio Pastorale Migranti - Arcidiocesi di Torino Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Sergio Last name of representative: Durando Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Cottolengo, 22 Town: Turin Postal code: 10152 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 348 896 1534 E-mail:s.durando@diocesi.torino.it Website:https://www.upmtorino.it/
URL:https://twitter.com/CSP_live Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #PersoneCSP, #AbitareCSP; #LavoroCSP; #EducazioneCSP; #ComunitàCSP; #InclusioneCSP
URL:https://www.facebook.com/AbitareCSP/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #PersoneCSP, #AbitareCSP; #LavoroCSP; #EducazioneCSP; #ComunitàCSP; #InclusioneCSP
The MOI initiative stems from an interinstitutional agreement signed by the City of Turin, the Prefecture of Turin, the Piedmont Region, the Diocese of Turin and the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation in 2017 to address the housing and employment emergency needs of the inhabitants occupying 4 degraded buildings of the former Olympic Village in Turin. The buildings housed more than 1,000 people, the vast majority of whom were asylum seekers and holders of international protection who had left the reception system. It was considered the largest occupation in Europe. Between 2017 and 2019, 6 “liberation operations” of the occupied buildings were conducted, 806 people were relocated in reception facilities. The people were subsequently supported by the project team, which accompanied their life projects for at least 18 months. After the area was vacated, the renovation of the 4 buildings and a further 3 buildings started and transformed the neighbourhood into a temporary social housing project with more than 400 housing solutions at subsidised rates for students, young workers and city users, to build a social mix ensuring a modern, accessible and economically sustainable housing offer.
The housing project was promoted by Fondo Abitare Sostenibile Piemonte (managed by InvestiRE SGR) in strict co-operation with the City of Turin and with the support of local main banking origin foudations, including Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT, Compagnia di San Paolo and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Group. The management of the buildings has been entrusted to Fondazione Camplus. In the future, the area will go through further urban regeneration interventions, conceived with the active contribution of the community living in the neighbourhood, enhancing a process that has given a space previously characterised by degradation, marginality, exclusion and tensions back to the people living in the area.
Inter-institutional and intercultural initiative
Promoting autonomy and social inclusion
Urban and social regeneration: : inhabitants restoring the beauty and the correct use of the area
Transformation of degraded buildings into a temporary social housing project
Participation of Civil society – multistakeholders
Sustainability was pursued during the dialogue phase and during the renovation phase of the project.
Liberation phase: during the occupation, approximately 1,200 m3 of materials, used goods and waste of various typology were stored in the underground spaces, which were emptied during the liberation.
To achieve the goal a participatory work with the occupants and specialised companies was undertaken to sort, transport and, where necessary, dispose of the materials in accordance with environmental regulations.
Through an agreement with a local cooperative, certain goods were stored in a warehouse and training was provided to the occupants on waste management, recovery of used goods and repair and reuse of goods, in a circular economy perspective.
During the restructuring phase, the focus was on the following elements:
LIGHTING: Renovation of the outdoor lighting system serving the entire plot, with a low consumption LED system.
GREENERY: Restoration of green areas through planting of trees (dispersion irrigation system), rainwater harvesting with reuse for irrigation.
BMS. The installation of a management and control system, capable of fulfilling the main control and regulation functions was conceived for each building. The individual building system will link with the overall monitoring station (Control Room). The main operating parameters of the building's mechanical systems (fluid temperatures, pump status, alarms, system programming) will also be monitored, as well as the status of the terminal devices of the special supervised systems (anti-intrusion, smoke and fire detection, disabled safety).
District heating for heating system and hot water production.
ENERGETIC MODEL: Improvement measures to upgrade from energy class C to “A1”.
With reference to the renovation of the buildings, attention was paid to restoring the area to its original character. The architect who conceived the project (2006) paid attention to the community and collective dimension, so to respond to a growing social complexity and to build an interface between individual and collective space. An important component was represented by the naturalistic inspiration, consisting in the use of colours and in the external and internal arrangements complementing the residence.The urban matrix of the Olympic Village, with its chessboard arrangement of buildings, generates an open space, organized on longitudinal pedestrian routes alternating green areas with spaces and transversal pedestrian paths connecting the buildings. The renovation has restored these dimensions creating a physical space that facilitates the meeting of the social mix of inhabitants.
Looking at the experience of the people occupying the area, after being transferred to shelters, they recognized that the living conditions in the blocks were extremely difficult, especially for families and children (many were born during the occupation); poverty, degradation and violence characterized daily life, also illegal activities made people feel not comfortable, as they felt part of a 'ghetto'. The most important transformative work was carried in favour and with people: relationships and trust have been built between occupants and the multidisciplinary team that operated inside and outside the area, in synergy with all the local actors; the project achieved to provide answers to people's needs (social and health services, law enforcement, intercultural mediation, employment/housing services). By finding solutions to the problems, people changed their conditions and were able to feel better, seeing their fundamental rights protected, and having a more positive attitude towards integration in the city (sending children to school, finding job, building new relationships
The aim of the project was to address an emergency situation without the use of evictions and through the motivation and the active cooperation of the inhabitants, offering them more decent living and working conditions, thus supporting them to reach better life conditions and inclusion. This specific part of the city was given back to its inhabitants who were able to reclaim spaces that they had no longer the freedom to use due to the occupation. Individual pathways to the occupants and their families have been ensured, people have been supported by a multidisciplinary team; case managers were responsible for coordinating the paths of each beneficiary and for allocating the project's resources, which were gradually enriched through inter-institutional collaboration.
Most of the people involved in the Moi project had problems in documenting their legal status. They needed to have their legal status recognised in order to have access to primary services and receive answers to protect their human rights. Constant and structured collaboration was activated with the competent public bodies and other institutions in charge, and thanks to the assistance of an association of legal experts specialised in migration issues, almost all cases were resolved and many people reached their full legal recognition.
Since the start of the Moi Project, some beneficiaries had been recognised as 'vulnerable'; the team investigated each situation in depth with the cooperation of the public health services and ethno-psychiatric centres, activating the intakes.
Specific interventions were then shaped for families, women; people without networks in the country of origin and in Italy have been sustained through language learning paths, support was ensured to reconcile life and work conditions (school attendance, insertion in services/activities for children), specific care paths (health services) have been guaranteed.
In the start-up phase, there was strong mistrust and resistance towards the project from local civil society and from the inhabitants of the buildings. The first intervention phase has been conceived to obtain the trust of the inhabitants. Starting the activities and the gradual implementation of the project, a growing consensus was gained in view of the positive concrete results that were gradually achieved. The objectives of the project were well defined, and it was decided to proceed in a flexible manner, answering to the real needs of the people. People living in the Moi buildings adhered to the intervention proposal, which included the possibility of undertaking more decent and inclusive life paths. Civil society gradually joined the project; during its implementation, the project experimented the co-operation of 30 civil society organisations, ensuring 60 reception facilities that hosted more than 800 people; in addition to those initially planned, a wide range of personalised interventions have been put at people’s disposal: they included opportunities to build social and personal relations, leisure occasions and opportunities integration in the community, overcoming obstacles.
People have been recognised in their uniqueness both as individuals and with reference to their migratory background, which has become an element of richness rather than an obstacle. Improving MOI ‘s inhabitants wellbeing and health has generally led to a general increase of the neighbourhood quality of life and of the sense of belonging to that specific part of the city.
Citizens living the Moi area witnessed the concrete challenges due to the building liberation operations; nevertheless, they also experienced a significant transformation of their territory: from a very serious degraded and insecure situation, they reached a good quality of life, cleanliness, beauty and requalification.
The project promoters have co-operated very actively, from the definition of the project to the completion of the people's inclusion interventions.
The Turin Municipality had the role of coordinating of the interinstitutional strategic committee, of providing economic resources to support the initiative, of engaging all its services, of ensuring public funding for migration to support the inclusion paths of MOI inhabitants.
The Turin Prefecture: had the role of coordinating and liaising with law enforcement bodies, with the offices of Police headquarters for the resolution of problems with the documentation of inhabitants’ legal status.
Compagnia di San Paolo: provided financial support to cover reception costs not covered by public funds, costs of the multidisciplinary team, ensured expertise and developed active projects, covered costs for legal assistance, liaised with other assistance organisations and was involved in the implementation of the renovation intervention.
Diocese of Turin: guaranteed social services and care to MOI inhabitants.
Piemonte Region: liaised with projects already active in the migration sector, ensured connections with other institutional actors, covered the costs for temporary reception of a number of fragile people.
Municipal districts: ensured constant dialogue with the inhabitants of the Moi area and mediation between citizens' demands and inter-institutional actions.
Inter-institutional strategic committee : provided strategic guidance and ensured political representation of the initiative.
Project management group: ensured the management of the initiative
With reference to the renovation component, the operation involved a number of subjects, including public and private entities:
Fondo Abitare Sostenibile Piemonte (Housing Investment Fund promoted by CDP Real Asset SGR S.p.a. and CSP) as investor
Investire SGR: manager of the FASP fund
Camplus Foundation (property manager).
The Project has been able to develop effective and innovative methodologies, characterized by a multidimensional approach toward the fragilities of the people involved and ensured a careful reading of the resources that the recipients of the intervention we able to put in place. In particular, in defining the interventions, the so-called refugee gap, i.e. the disadvantage determined by the fact of being able to rely relatively on the migratory chain in the processes of inclusion, both on the employment and housing fronts, and the effects determined by each migration process, internal or external, which impact on people's system of references and relations has been taken into account. The contribution of different civil society actors with different skills and experiences was enhanced.
A multidisciplinary team was set up and engaged professionals with a thorough expertise in different fields: social workers, educators, psychologists, cultural mediators, social architects, experts in active labour policies, figures with project management skills and legal practitioners. On the basis of the team's assessments of each situation, the best solutions were identified in response to the people's needs, other institutional actors were involved (social and health services, employment services, housing services) and cooperation was built to benefit other people. Where no solutions were found, ad hoc projects were conceived (temporary co-housing accommodation with housing support, projects applying for national funding) or 'subsidiary' experiments were created with other civil society actors (ethno-psychiatric centres, financial education activities for families). Situations were then monitored over time.
Moreover, there was also a project management committee involving representatives of each promoting organisation to monitor the progress of the initiative and an inter-institutional committee had the role to define strategic guidelines and ensure coordination.
From 2017 to 2019, the four buildings and also the basements (where people in the most degraded situation lived) were gradually vacated. Over 850 people were involved in the project , 806 of whom were housed in facilities belonging to the City of Turin, the Turin Diocese and to the local civil society. Subsequently, the people were supported with vocational training courses, Italian language programmes, and accompanied through autonomous living and working paths, with the aim of achieving the best possible living conditions while respecting the people's attitudes, perspectives, wishes.
The final data on the paths implemented show that very important results have been achieved: out of 806 people transferred from the blocks of flats to reception facilities/other housing contexts, the following results have been reached:
• 753 training and orientation paths since the start of the project
• 533 work contracts activated since the start of the project
• 393 work traineeships activated since the start of the project
• More than 190 people in independent housing living in more than 80 flats.
In addition to the results presented above, it is important to emphasize that:
• The MOI represented a valuable observatory on the needs of people with a migrant background, confirming the persistence of the so-called "relational, work and housing disadvantage" for foreign people;
• The MOI highlighted similarities with other people in difficulty, thus representing an opportunity for in-depth study of housing and employment fragility;
• Given the large number of people followed, the MOI made it possible to build an action-research work with respect to methods, tools and responses, moving away from the logic of pure emergency.
Turning an emergency into an opportunity: instead of the repressive actions usually taken in situations of squatting and high urban criticality, interventions to promote people, mediate and reconcile needs and protect the rights of both the people occupying the area and the neighbourhood inhabitants have been prioritised . The conditions of structural degradation and danger (infiltrations in the buildings, abuse in the use of electricity and gas, behaviour disregarding public safety and security, fire risks, accumulation of rubbish, deposits of scrap metal and materials found by the occupants in order to be resold for subsistence savings) were tackled step by step and definitive solutions were found that have restored the area and led to its complete transformation, from a structural (renovation of the buildings), environmental (recovery and recycling of materials, restoration of adequate sanitary conditions, recovery of green areas) and social point of view (individualized paths of social inclusion for the former occupants of the area and restitution of healthy and usable spaces to the neighbourhood inhabitants, allocation of the new buildings to social housing).
The joint commitment undertaken by the inter-institutional alliance has been maintained for several years, until the objectives set have been fully achieved.
· INNOVATIVE FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS: The real estate funds dedicated to social housing have enabled the leverage effect of the resources provided by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti with respect to the territorial resources made available in particular by the foundations of banking origin;
· URBAN REGENERATION: the urban and social redevelopment project of the former Olympic Village in Turin is a virtuous example of the public-private partnership and synergy between national investors (CDP) and local foundations of banking origin as partners in the area.
The MOI Project is an interinstitutional intervention. It would not have been possible to achieve the results obtained if institutions had not constantly worked in coordination. A protocol agreement was signed between the promoting institutions that defined the governance of the project. The project's governance envisaged the Interinstitutional Strategic Committee, in charge of strategic guidance and political representation (composed by political representatives each institution). The project management committe, a body including a technical representative of each promoting institution, guaranteed the overall management of the initiative and ensured the practical application of indications received from the Interinstitutional Table. A multidisciplinary team was set up, with 5 thematic areas: service management; accommodation; work, housing and cultural mediation; the team had a multidimensional approach to the fragilities of the people involved. This governance allowed timely and coordinated decisions at all stages. For example, thanks to the coordination between institutions, to the preparation and interdisciplinary organisation of operations, it was possible to successfully liberate the buildings without critical issues. This made it possible to enhance the contribution of different institutional and civil society actors who jointly and effectively contributed to the initiative with different skills and experiences and with an inclusive community welfare approach. Interdisciplinarity was also relevant with regard to the recovery component of the buildings and the operation was successful in terms of:
financial (with local investors with the foundations of banking origin and national investors with CDP supported by the private manager INVESTIRE SGR)
planning (aimed at maximizing the recovery of existing buildings)
management: involvement of a specialized operator - CAMPLUS Foundation - already operating in Turin and with a social agreement with the municipality
Some exchanges of practical experiences with initiatives at a European level (City of Marseilles, C-Mise, Connection initiative) have been promoted; the exchange focused on the strategy that institutions applied to the emergency in the MOI area and on the working method undertaken at a multidisciplinary level. Starting from the MOI experience, a process of capitalization of practices on the subject housing and migration was initiated; a toolkit for Third Sector organisations, officials/administrators of public bodies, advocacy and/or research organisations was developed: the profiling of recipients and the range of housing solutions were collected. A methodology was proposed to define the most sustainable housing solution , through a multidimensional analysis of people and the steps to achieve it in relation with the person's life and migration path have been made; in the second case, a wide range of housing types were identified, so to respond to housing needs of people with diverse profiles and characterized by a high level of job insecurity and geographical mobility. The “Moi Method” could be replicated in other areas, nationally and internationally, both for massive squatter settlements and more easily for smaller scale events, where the following conditions are satisfied:
Favourable conditions to build solid partnerships mainly between institutions at local, intermediate and national levels ;
The willingness to involve other strategic social components including the third sector and civil society.
From a structural, aesthetic and environmental point of view, links between public and private sector actors can be considered in order to involve them in wider interventions of redevelopment and reuse of similar areas. The organisations promoting the project are structurally present in modern democratic societies, with different articulations but similar competences and missions, therefore the 'Moi model' could find potential replicability in such contexts
The project for the liberation of the buildings and the social accompaniment for the progressive autonomy of the people who lived in the former MOI, mainly migrants, is part of an even broader objective: the construction of a territorial strategy of social, cultural and urban development involving all the inhabitants of that specific area.
With regard to the occupants, the project was able to influence their life trajectories within migration paths, potentially even circular ones; doing so, the project contributed to Sustainable Development Goal No 1 - No Poverty, SDG 2 - Zero Hunger, SDG 5 - Gender Equality and SDG 8-Decent work, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities. In addition, the renovation of the buildings contributed to give a part of the city back to its inhabitants and enhanced urban regeneration of this neighbourhood, with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of life for all and promoting social cohesion. The intervention contributed to achieve results linked to SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities.
All these actions are included in the framework of SDG 17, which promotes partnerships to achieve sustainable development.
