HOLES
Milan, the city symbol, greater italian financial market and capital of fashion and industrial design.
A little more than three kilometers from the city center and the famous fashion district, at the end of one of the busiest streets near the big shipping, an area of entertainment and fun, a bridge whose arches were walled up, all but one, an underpass.
Through the underpass, it seems the time has stopped in the mid of the last century.
A Romanian community camped nearby finding shelter inside the walled bridge, after opening the gates by breaking the walls with picks.
These holes become doors that allow them to live around the arches that they consider their homes, furnished by furniture and appliances found in the street or landfill.
The number of community members varies from forty to about seventy people who come and go, sure to be welcomed back everytime. Some of them, through the help of volunteers and neighborhood associations, find home and work, and they never go back unless they greet a relative.
Hygienic conditions are deplorable, a colony of rats have settles among the wastes that are regularly abandoned in the area head on the arches .
When it rains, the water floods the inside of the bridge and the topsoil floor becomes mud, there is no electricity, heating or running water. They cook with camping stoves and warm up by lighting a fire in the old bins inside the arches but they risk to suffocate cause of the smoke that is way out through small holes on the wall of the bridge.
The community lives on alms and what everyone can find rummaging through the wastes before the garbage truck move.
There’s food still eatable and objects that can be resold.
Someone has old vans which often become a real home on four wheels .
Various charitable associations had trying to help by offering food, the opportunity to take a shower, accompanying the children to school.
Life at the camp is always tough.
After numerous warnings and as many attempts to improve the situation, in 2013 the hygienic conditions were so severe as to make sure that the community will be evicted by the state railways that own the bridge and the area in front. Was offered free accommodations and aid but, unfortunately, are not accepted by most of the "inhabitants of the bridge". Too much is the fear that social workers take in foster children .
Thus the community leaves the bridge which is subsequently walled again and seized by the authorities .
At the time many of them live in tents in the countryside on the edge of city limits.
A little more than three kilometers from the city center and the famous fashion district, at the end of one of the busiest streets near the big shipping, an area of entertainment and fun, a bridge whose arches were walled up, all but one, an underpass.
Through the underpass, it seems the time has stopped in the mid of the last century.
A Romanian community camped nearby finding shelter inside the walled bridge, after opening the gates by breaking the walls with picks.
These holes become doors that allow them to live around the arches that they consider their homes, furnished by furniture and appliances found in the street or landfill.
The number of community members varies from forty to about seventy people who come and go, sure to be welcomed back everytime. Some of them, through the help of volunteers and neighborhood associations, find home and work, and they never go back unless they greet a relative.
Hygienic conditions are deplorable, a colony of rats have settles among the wastes that are regularly abandoned in the area head on the arches .
When it rains, the water floods the inside of the bridge and the topsoil floor becomes mud, there is no electricity, heating or running water. They cook with camping stoves and warm up by lighting a fire in the old bins inside the arches but they risk to suffocate cause of the smoke that is way out through small holes on the wall of the bridge.
The community lives on alms and what everyone can find rummaging through the wastes before the garbage truck move.
There’s food still eatable and objects that can be resold.
Someone has old vans which often become a real home on four wheels .
Various charitable associations had trying to help by offering food, the opportunity to take a shower, accompanying the children to school.
Life at the camp is always tough.
After numerous warnings and as many attempts to improve the situation, in 2013 the hygienic conditions were so severe as to make sure that the community will be evicted by the state railways that own the bridge and the area in front. Was offered free accommodations and aid but, unfortunately, are not accepted by most of the "inhabitants of the bridge". Too much is the fear that social workers take in foster children .
Thus the community leaves the bridge which is subsequently walled again and seized by the authorities .
At the time many of them live in tents in the countryside on the edge of city limits.