Burning down the house
I learned as a kid not to get too attached to things and places. By the time I was six, I'd lived in five different houses. 'Home' was a concept I had to bend to my necessity: it doesn't necessarily mean a place, but rather people who make me feel safe and loved.
From 2016 to 2020, my family and I faced eviction. We lived in an apartment in Milan, struggling to make it through every month. At some point, my father's unstable income couldn't cover both the costs of his addiction and our rent. I was 16, my brother 13. My mom had to choose between paying the landlord or feeding us. My dad never acknowledged the depth of the problem and eventually left.
© Tecla
Years of eviction and housing denial
In Italy, the eviction process begins with multiple warnings later leading to the police violently kicking you out of your own house. We never got to that point because the bureaucracy got stuck in its own web. They couldn't properly reach my dad. Then the pandemic hit. It put on hold not only our search for a new place, but the eviction too. We experienced two years of housing denial. My mom's salary wasn't enough for the landlords. I had to increasingly come to terms with the idea of ever more absurd flats. A family of three in a place designed for a single person. A 30m2 basement. An apartment without the legal requirements to have gas and electricity. At the same time, I couldn't get too familiar with those places, at the risk of being hurt when the owners refused our proposal.
I witnessed firsthand how landlords are willing to profit off of the needs of desperate people. They have the keys – physical and metaphorical – to housing, and thus always the upper hand on imposing conditions. We applied for social housing, ending up on the 3689th place on the waiting list. We considered squatting a house with the help of an association fighting for housing rights. I was willing to adapt to anything. While facing eviction, rest doesn't exist. Leaving the house could mean coming back to new locks on the door. A violent deprivation of a cocoon you weaved for yourself. I was craving a nest to lay and rest again. As much as I was used to moving, I had never experienced the threat of leaving a place without a safe destination. The ground I thought existed under my feet wasn't there anymore.
© Tecla
Unexpectedly, when I imagined I was bound to feel just fear and anger, I found my vulnerability. Experiencing intimacy was a form of self-care. Capturing it on film felt like journaling. Love gave me the hope to swim through the thick swamp that my trauma was. The coziness of stability was something I could find in the warmth of a hug. People offered me the protection and familiarity I hadn't risked assigning to a place my whole life.
I started packing in 2018. In July 2020, we moved. On the day of our sixth move as a family, walls of boxes towered over us in our new tiny apartment. It was too expensive, just like the rest of them, but there was a steady roof over our heads.
This story is not a feel-good nor an inspirational one.
Not everyone who experienced this kind of situation has the privilege to have a relatively happy ending. My story is not a feel-good one. It's just dystopian. The resilience and strength I built during this traumatic experience arose from living four of my formative years in survival mode. The trauma I faced shapes my life decisions. I want a nine-to-five job, a stable housing situation, a boring life. I yearn for stability.
My story is not an inspirational one either. As much as this journey taught me, I would gladly have those years back. And as much as the people around me supported me, neither they nor I could change anything. There are no saviours here. We are stuck with a system protecting landlords over tenants. We are in desperate need of an accessible and sustainable alternative. Housing is a human right, and yet tenants are often defenseless at best, and exploited in an inhuman way at the worst. We are in desperate need of an accessible and sustainable alternative.
