{"id":10926,"date":"2025-11-21T12:07:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/?p=10926"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:07:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:07:36","slug":"what-we-want-to-see-in-melonis-housing-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/en\/2025\/11\/21\/what-we-want-to-see-in-melonis-housing-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Want to See in Meloni\u2019s Housing Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Rimini meeting of Communion and Liberation, the Prime Minister announced the adoption of measures to offer young couples housing at controlled prices. It is no surprise that the promise stirred enthusiasm among the audience, because the difficulty of buying or renting a home at market conditions\u2014combined with low incomes\u2014is one of the main obstacles preventing young people from leaving their parental home. Existing incentives have produced little impact because they do not make mortgage payments more sustainable. Above all, what is missing is a comprehensive housing policy that addresses the needs and hardships of everyone, not of individual categories. In any case, there is no shortage of ideas and proposals that could at least ease the situation. What is lacking are the resources the government is willing to allocate.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rebuilding a society \u201cin which the family is once again recognized and valued for the irreplaceable role it plays. I say this also by announcing that one of the priorities on which we intend to work is a major housing plan with controlled prices for young couples. Because without a home, it\u2019s hard to build a family\u201d: with these words, among others, on 27 August 2025 the Prime Minister stirred the enthusiasm of the audience at the annual Communion and Liberation meeting. Should the government truly promote policies to facilitate young people’s access to housing\u2014whether they are individuals, couples already formed, or couples intending to form\u2014it would be addressing a long-standing issue, one for which the few measures adopted so far have produced no significant results. The specific difficulties of young people should, however, be viewed as part of a broader problem: that of housing in our country. One must wonder whether the limited effectiveness of the interventions implemented thus far is not also due to the absence of an organic, structured housing policy.<\/p>\n

Young People Who Stay Home<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The magnitude of the housing problem is substantial. In its 2025 Annual Report<\/em>, Istat documents that in Italy, as of 1 January 2024, two out of three young people aged 18 to 34 were still living in their family home. Almost twenty years ago, in 2009, the then Minister of the Economy, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, referred to them as \u201cbig babies,\u201d casting a negative shadow on them, as if this situation were always the result of personal choice. However, when examining more closely the various age groups included in the category \u201cyoung people,\u201d it emerges that nearly all eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds (98%) live with their parents and are generally students. It is true that in some European countries the share is lower, but considering such a high rate excessive seems forced, just as it seems misguided to think that they rely on public incentives to achieve residential independence. The same applies to young people aged 20 to 25: for them too, \u201csetting up one\u2019s own household\u201d does not yet appear to be a widespread and priority aspiration.<\/p>\n

The idea of setting up one\u2019s own home, however, does concern a significant share of those aged 25 to 29, who represent two-thirds of the total, and also affects the 30% of those aged 30 to 34 who have not yet left their family home\u2014nearly three million people.<\/p>\n

For these young adults, the possibility of leaving their parents\u2019 home depends not only on available housing supply but also on their own economic situation and that of their families, who are often called upon to support them in their path to independence.<\/p>\n

A Guarantee That Isn\u2019t Enough<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If the Prime Minister\u2019s promise were to materialize, it still would not be the first measure specifically aimed at supporting young people\u2019s residential independence. Renting would probably be the least expensive option for leaving the parental home, but the Italian state chooses instead to promote homeownership.<\/p>\n

In this perspective, the First Home Guarantee Fund will remain active until 2027. The fund was established within the Ministry of Economy and Finance and is managed by Consap, the public insurance services agency. Its current structure is defined by the 2014 Stability Law and subsequent amendments, but its origins date back to 2008, with the creation of a credit access fund for young couples and single-parent families with small children. It was established within the Ministry of Youth, which at the time was headed by none other than Giorgia Meloni.<\/p>\n

The First Home Fund provides banks with a public guarantee on mortgages granted not only to young people and young couples but also to other groups, including several types of families with minor children. Leaving aside, for reasons of space, the details of eligibility requirements, it is enough to recall that the guarantee normally covers 50% of the loan principal, but may reach up to 90% for certain categories of beneficiaries, provided that the mortgage amounts to at least 80% of the home\u2019s purchase price.<\/p>\n

The Fund\u2019s figures are noteworthy: according to the report submitted by Consap to the presidents of the Chamber and Senate and to the competent ministers, as of 31 December 2024, mortgages granted with its guarantee amounted to 465,000. Eight percent went to couples formed at least two years earlier with at least one member aged no more than 35; 35% (160,000 mortgages) went to young people under 36 who received priority access to the Fund; including mortgages granted without priority, the percentage rises to 60%.<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of the Fund, however, must be assessed by considering its impact on the sustainability of the mortgages. In other words, we must verify whether the reduction in lender risk translates into lower interest rates and, therefore, lower interest payments for beneficiaries. Yet\u2014judging from the data reported on the website MutuiOnline, consulted on 10 September 2025\u2014regarding mortgage conditions offered by individual banks for the purchase of a first home in Bologna priced at \u20ac250,000, with a fixed-rate \u20ac200,000 mortgage and an ISEE below \u20ac40,000, the guarantee does not seem to have had any impact. Rates vary\u2014sometimes significantly\u2014from bank to bank, but the most interesting point is that each bank applies the same conditions regardless of whether the borrower is young or not, even when noting that the mortgage is backed by the guarantee. Similar results were found in previous years\u2019 consultations of the same website.<\/p>\n

In short, the Fund does not appear to significantly affect mortgage costs for homebuyers: it does not make mortgage payments more sustainable for beneficiaries. The guarantee offered by the Fund, which adds to the collateral provided by the mortgage lien, strengthens risk coverage for banks but does not generate an evident social return\u2014something that should instead be the objective of any public intervention, including in housing.<\/p>\n

A Missing Overall Framework<\/strong><\/h3>\n

To promote young people\u2019s residential autonomy and support the formation of new families, a change of approach is needed. The solution should be sought not in sectoral programs but within a housing plan and a comprehensive, overarching housing policy. Yet, judging from public statements by politicians, \u201ccorporate\u201d demands prevail: Prime Minister Meloni makes promises to young couples; the Minister of Education calls for reserving some housing units for teachers and school technical staff; and it would be no surprise if other ministers made similar requests.<\/p>\n

For its part, the 2025 Budget Law tasked the Minister of Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini, with promoting the \u201cItaly Housing Plan.\u201d He was expected to present it by June 2025\u2014though the limited funds allocated would in any case be usable only from 2028 onward. But so far, no trace of it has appeared.<\/p>\n

An effective public intervention should instead integrate various sectoral needs within a unified, coherent housing strategy\u2014not an improvised one\u2014capable, like any other social policy, of selecting beneficiaries and calibrating support levels based on need and hardship, regardless of occupation or other personal characteristics.<\/p>\n

Pursuing this objective requires, among other things, the involvement of multiple actors, starting with public entities owning housing units, and the adoption of a wide range of measures aimed at families unable to meet their housing needs under market conditions.<\/p>\n

What Needs to Be Done<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The pillars of this architecture can be mentioned only briefly here. First of all, it is necessary to increase the stock of public housing available to the most disadvantaged families and to adequately fund the Social Rent Fund, which helps cover rent payments for families forced to rent from private landlords. Moreover, a key component of an effective housing plan must be the revival of subsidized housing, which makes it possible to offer sale prices and rents below market levels thanks to public contributions and municipal planning decisions, with municipalities required to provide building land also at controlled prices.<\/p>\n

Once the general framework has been defined, targeted measures for specific situations can be considered. For young people, for example, several solutions can be envisioned. Tens of thousands of public housing units are currently vacant and cannot be assigned because owners lack the resources needed to bring them up to standard and carry out necessary renovations. In some cases, public entities ask families interested in renting these units to advance the renovation expenses, later deducting them from rent payments. However, when young people\u2014whether single or in couples\u2014cannot afford such costs, they must take out a loan: to facilitate access to credit, eligibility for the Guarantee Fund could be extended to these situations.<\/p>\n

In subsidized housing programs, companies and cooperatives receive public contributions\u2014either grants or interest subsidies\u2014to lower both purchase prices and rents for the housing they build; increased contributions could be offered for units earmarked for young people. The same logic of higher subsidies could be applied to tax incentives and rent-support measures. Municipalities can also play an important role: when allocating land for subsidized housing, they could favor projects that reserve a share of units for young people, whether for ownership or rental.<\/p>\n

There are many relevant experiences to draw from. Similar rules for first-time home purchase incentives are, for instance, provided by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region. Other initiatives with similar aims have been launched in various Italian regions and in other countries. In short, there is no shortage of ideas and proposals. What is holding back policies that would promote young people\u2019s residential autonomy is the scarcity of resources\u2014the government plans to allocate around \u20ac600 million to its housing plan. As an old saying goes: you can\u2019t hold a grand wedding using only dried figs.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Raffaele Lungarella served as a senior official in the public administration, working on housing policy and the evaluation of public investments. He was adjunct professor of applied economics at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. In 2025 he published an introduction to The Housing Question by Friedrich Engels for Editori Riuniti.<\/em><\/p>\n

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