Thanks to rising rents and tourist numbers, around a thousand residents are being driven out of the canal city every year. Italian photographer Nicola Zolin spends time with members of the ASC (Social Assembly for Housing) who are repurposing abandoned properties, fighting eviction notices, and uniting against the silent exile of Venice locals.
The four-storey building is wrapped in a tired facade of peeling paint and old wooden balconettes, its abandonment obvious in the morning sun. Directly below, a crowd of locals is gathering with biscotti, caffe and a protest sign reading ‘ASC—Assemblea Sociale per la Casa’ (Social Assembly for Housing) in hand.
The calli (Venetian streets) are otherwise deserted here in Santa Marta, Venice, in stark contrast to the busy alleys around the corner that heave with tourists. Standing nearby, 33-year-old Marta Sottoriva is visibly tense. She’s been squatting in a flat on the second floor of the building, and is anticipating a visit from the bailiff with an eviction notice. Several other inhabitants are expecting the same.
“I’ve lived in Venice for the last 10 years,” Marta explains. “First I was a student, now I am a precarious teacher. All my friends, all my life is here now. Rental costs are too high in Venice, but I have no intention to leave. When I found out about the ASC, I decided to enter one of the unoccupied houses.”
“We’re not stealing, we’re doing the job someone else should be doing.” Chiara Buratti, ASC member
The crowd, also known as the Assembly, is gathering this morning in a show of unity and protection for Venice residents like Marta. Giosué, Malika, William, Patrizia, Chiara, Elena and other members of the Assembly have all received eviction orders and are acting collectively in, what they believe is, an act of political resistance against a city that’s done nothing to prevent the silent exile of its local population. In 2022, the Assembly published a ‘self-defense from eviction’ booklet, which advises on the different phases of evictions and how to resist. The Assembly motto, ‘Qui viviamo, qui restiamo’—Here we live, here we stay.
The population in Venice has decreased dramatically since the 1950s, going from 170,000 residents to less than 50,000 in just 75 years. The exodus has impacted primarily lower and middle-class residents, youth demographics and people who rent. One of the main causes? Tourism.
Tourism in Venice has continued to drive rental prices up in the private sector. In fact, the number of beds available for tourists has just surpassed the number of beds owned by Venetian residents. Six out of 10 houses are now considered a ‘locazione turistica’ (tourist-only rental); many traditional stores and workshops have been replaced by cookie-cutter, often foreign-owned shops.
Every year, around a thousand residents leave Venice. “This situation is unacceptable if you consider all the houses that are empty,” says 36-year-old Chiara Buratti, one of the Assembly spokespeople. “Look at this building—there are eight flats, two that are regularly inhabited, two that are squatted and the other four are abandoned. That gives you a picture of life here in Venice.”
In the city, there are 11,000 council homes, which low-income households rely on. But according to Chiara, even they are in regrettably poor conditions.
“ASC has been active since 1998 and has opened 78 of these council homes so far. We found them abandoned, rotten, uninhabitable, and thanks to our network, we managed to fix them and make them available for the needy again. Often we used materials given to us by Biennale’s artists” she says. “We are not stealing. We are doing the job someone else should be doing.”
“The administration is only interested in making business out of this city. They chose tourism as monoculture regardless of the causes of this population drain. But we love this place too much and we won’t let them wear us down.”
- Chiara Buratti, ASC member
William and Fiorella, an elderly couple, are also squatting. They have just been given their date for eviction in October, and William is marking it on their calendar. “It is tiring to live in such a precarious condition,” he says. “What other choice do we have?” asks Fiorella. “If I had to pay rent in Venice, I couldn’t even buy my underwear anymore.”
At their flat, William and Fiorella still have the protest posters they used last April when mayor and businessman, Luigi Brugnaro, started experimenting with a €5 city access ticket. Touted as a measure to control tourism flow, the idea has been heavily criticized by wider Venice and the Assembly as likening the city to Disneyland. The ASC even printed a satirical paper in response that reads: ‘Welcome to Venice-land’.
“The administration is only interested in making business out of this city,” says Chiara. “They chose tourism as monoculture regardless of the causes of this population drain. But we love this place too much and we won’t let them wear us down.”
But what’s next for Venice, the Assembly and these residents fighting to stay? The ASC members are demanding the city halt all eviction procedures, introduce subsidies on rent, fines for people who purposely keep their properties vacant and make more council houses made available.
Most importantly, the Assembly wants to confront a system that keeps favoring the liberalization and sale of important municipal buildings at the expense of the people who are really living in and bringing life to the city. Venice isn’t just a postcard; it’s a laboratory of art, culture, knowledge and tradition that is endangered, in need of protection.
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Nicola Zolin is a photojournalist and writer, interested in the social and environmental transformations at the borders of Europe, Middle East and Asia. His stories deal with the idea of freedom and liberation from society's structures.
