The Ludington Daily News from Ludington, Michigan • Page 2

9' Shanty Towns Around Rome House Masses By CHARLES W. BELL ROME (UPI) From his comfortable fifth floor apartment on the new Applan Way, Lamberto Stefanucci has the worst view of Rome. He looks down on a festering slum called Borghetto Latino, symbol of the mess Italian urban housing is in. Latino, as its 3,000 inhabitans call it, is one of the dozens of shanty towns huddled around Rome in what one newspaper describes as an "obscene wreath." Getting 1 rid of the wreath is an Italian woe. Latino is clustered along a muddy, rock strewn alley which inhabitants call Latino Avenue.

Mail is simply addressed to Borghetto Latino and the postman figures out what goes where. Some of the shacks have dirt floors. Many have no heating, electricity or plumbing. Almost none is painted. For years, Latino was hidden behind a row of apartment buildings along the new Appian Way, unnoticed by motorists and the government alike.

Now Latino is demanding public attention. So are hundreds of other slum towns in Rome, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Genoa and other industrial centers. "This place is like a dirty mushroom," said one of its residents, Mrs. Attilio Delesio. "It just grew up in the mud and garbage." Latino leaped into the headlines last October when visiting Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A.

Armstrong, Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin and Michael J. Collins ran into a demonstration on the new Appian Way. "We aren't asking for the moon," read one placard waved at the astronauts. "We want a decent place to live." When several hundred inhabj- tants tore down their own shacks with hammers, crowbars and picks last month, Latino became a symbol.

Latino is typical of most slum towns in the country. It was built aboout 25 years ago when the first wave of post-World War II migrants arrived from the impoverished south to find work. Unable to find any place to to pay any rent if they newcomers erected shacks from cement blocks, wooden crates, tile and sheets of tin. Italians call them "midnight towns" because most were built between dusk and dawn to thwart police, who can serve eviction notices only on persons living in a roofless dwelling. In Rome alone, the slum population estiimated at 70,000.

Some other cities, notably the automobile capital of Turin, have more than 100,000 shanty town inhabitants. Most pay no rent. Others pay a token sum. The only housing costs are utilities and.the price families pay to the lucky ones who get out and sell their shacks. "I'paid 350,000 lira ($560) for this house," said Nello Cecchini, 32, a carpenter who earns $40 a week.

"I've got four children and we cannot stay here this winter." Cecchini was among several hundred men who marched from Latino to condemned buildings or incomplete apartment blocks and moved in. Some are still sitting tight. Others were ejected by police after several weeks. One man went to court after he moved his wife and six children into an empty apartment in a public housing block. A magistrate dismissed charges of "invading a public building" 1 and decried the fact no housing was available.

The situation is worsening at a rate that alarms officials in Italian cities, already weighted down by debt. Rome goes into debt another $208 million ery year. About 200 newcomers arrive every day in Rome, most of them from the south and many not only broke but illiterate. Over the past 12 years, a third of Italy's 53 million population has shifted from one town to another, most of them southerners moving north in search of better opportunities. tudtogton Daily News, Wednesday, December 8.

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