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Among the dossiers of the Department of Housing in Milan there is also another closely related issue: rent for students. By now, the number of beds in Milan has skyrocketed: to be able to afford a single room, you need to put an average of 620 euros into the budget, while for a double bed, you need about half as much (according to what emerges from a research by the Immobiliare study center .it).
Rooms from 250 euros per month
The idea that Palazzo Marino is working on is to ban vacant social housing, after a redevelopment, precisely for students, guaranteeing more accessible prices and calculated on the basis of income. It will be a sort of “widespread student residence”, as Pierfrancesco Maran, councilor for housing and neighborhood planning, calls it. We will start as soon as possible with the first 300 houses, for 600 students, who will be able to access a room by paying between 250 and 350 euros, according to the ISEE. A much lower figure than the student residences managed by private individuals, which already exist or will be built (also taking advantage of the Pnrr).
Milan, Rotelli “Old Galeazzi hospital will become a student residence”
Universities today offer mixed possibilities: either with full payment (around 7-800 for a single) or with a reduction based on merit and family income. The private student residences under construction – like the one that will be built from Coima to Porta Romana following the 2026 Winter Olympics (transforming the Olympic village), or like the one imagined in place of the old Galeazzi hospital in Bruzzano by the San Donato group – will have figures which will fluctuate between 700 and one thousand euros for a single room of about 20-30 square meters. With some form of public agreement it will be possible to go down to 600 euros, no more. Not really figures that solve the high rents for students, evidently. However, they have been hailed as necessary projects because there are still few student residences in Italy and the presence of the private sector at least guarantees speedy implementation.
The funds for 660 million
In May, an amendment to the PA decree released 660 million public funds (of which a third would go to Milan) for “the acquisition of the availability of new beds in lodgings or residences for students of higher education institutions”. It arrived after an interlocution with the European Commission which made it possible to exclude the nature of state aid.
These public funds, designed to create 45,000 beds throughout Italy, help to lower the rates of at least 15% of private individuals, but the latter must still plan a return on investment, weighed down by expensive energy. It is clear that this is an emergency management of the problem, with no real ability to respond to the needs of students with medium and low incomes. Precisely for this reason Palazzo Marino would like to try to implement this new project by exploiting vacant social housing. To obtain funds for renovations (on average 30,000 euros per apartment) dialogue has begun with the Ministry of Education.