Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1910-07-11
ROME CONFRONTS
. HOUSING PROBLEM
Eternal City Concentrates Atten-
ton on ReCurrent Cues
ton of Room
EXHIBITION THREATENS JAM
Italian Government Shows Vital
Interest in Model Dwell
ingS for LaborerS
EXHIBITION THREATENS JAM

ROME, July 10.-The municipal cleo
tions next month and the approaching
exhibition of next year are concentrat-
ing the attention of all residents in
Rome upon the housing question, an
everlasting problem, which has become
more and more acute during the last
few years. The army of employees and
the increasing concentration of many
forms of national activity in the cap
ital have taxed its housing resources
to the utmost limits, while two factors
have in the past rendered the extern
sion of the city in many directions very
difficult namely, the character of the
sub-soil honeycombed as it is with UNI
foreground passages and catacombs and
malaria. The malarial zone, however,
has been gradually rolled back by the
extension of the inhabited area and
by the really excellent work of the
sanitary authorities, so that malaria
is no longer scourge of the near Cam
pagna. The sub-soil difficulty is also
being circumvented by avoiding the
spots where the ground is unsafe.
There remains a third obstacle-want
of money, but this, too, is in a fair
way to be overcome by means of gov
eminent and municipal loans, co-opera-
tive building associations and assist
ance given by certain large employers
of labor, such as the gas and tram
way companies, the state railways and
the savings banks.
The most important institution for
building workmen's dwellings is the
Institute dele case Popolari, of which
Senator Leopoldo Franchetti is now
president. 1t has already built cheap
dwellings, for some 5000 families and
has the sum of 100000 still in hand
with which to build more. The money
was loaned by the savings banks and
several Workmen's associations. An
other similar institution is the Societa
del Benz Stabili, which also builds
houses of superior class. 1t is a pri-
vate society on q sound financial basis,
which pays fair dividends, and its
workmens dwellings are among the
best in Italy; they are of the tenement
type, but airy, we'll kept and provided
with garden courts, baths and wash
houses. 1t is remarkable that the rents
are no higher than those of the Sums
just opposite in the same San Lorenzo
quarter and, although inhabited by the
same class of tenants as the latter,
these apartments are clean and neat,
thus proving the truth Of the saying
that If you give people good houses
they will keep them well.
All this, however, is but little in COM
parison with what remains to be done,
for there are still many thousands OF
families in the San Lorenzo and Tes-
taccio quarters and even IN the center
of the city living in insanitary, over
crowded and ill kept slums, besides
certain number, fortunately decreasing,
who are lodged in tiny shanties made
OF the tin of flattened out petroleum
cans, odd boards and bits of canvas
on the outskirts of the city, and others
outside the walls who live in caves
simply because proper dwellings, at
reasonable charges are not to be found.
The government servants are rela-
lively Just as badly off, as they have
to keep up a certain amount of ap-
pearance on low salaries. They are,
however, working out the solution by
means of cooperative societies among
themselves, and whole new quarters
have arisen and are arising near st.
John Lateran, outside the Porta
Nomentana and the Porta Salarla,
composed of houses for the smaller
municipal and government clerks.
These undertakings deserve all pos
sible encouragement on the part of the
authorities, as the house famine is
largely due to the buying up or vast
quantities of land and buildings by the
government departments, although
similar purchases by the many rellg-
;ous orders who have come to Rome
from France anu elS6NllSlO cilC ploO 10
part responsible. Many students OF So
cial problems in italy are of opinion
that the tenement type, if sanitary,
airy and we'll kept, is more suitable
to the gregarious italian character
than the separate family dwelling.
Others doubt whether that gregarious-
ness, the result of overcrowdtng In the
mast, is a desirable tendency and should
not be discouraged.
One difficulty to be faced is that Oh
tramway communications; it is useless
to build employers and workmen's
dwellings from the center of the city
where land is cheap if their inhabl-
tants cannot get to their offices ana
places of work cheaply and rapidly.
There are still some quarters of Rome
inhabited by the lower and lower mid
die classes which have no tramways at
all SO that their inhabitants have to
walk great distances to their various
occupations In the case Of the Oh
ficiais the difficulty is even greater
So far no solution of the problem or
housing the crowds which are expected
at the exposition has been found. That
great inconvenience will be experienced
seems certain.