Social Re-Housing in Venice. A Case Study on the Empty Dwellings of the Local Public Housing Agency

The decrease in the resident population of Venice–limited to its historic center–is a well-known phenomenon that began around the 1950s and continues to this day. As early as the 1970s, some urban planning scholars identified poor housing conditions and the lack of modern urban services as the causes of depopulation in downtown Venice and the surrounding islands. More recently, the trend has been further incentivized by additional factors, such as the expansion of the tourism industry and the resulting conversion of dwellings into holiday accommodations. Thus, the lack of healthy, comfortable, and affordable housing in the non-tourist rental market is one of the main incentives for the inhabitants to move away. This contribution delves into the possibility of addressing this shortage through the reuse of publicly owned dwellings. An evaluation model is proposed and tested on a sample of empty properties belonging to the local Public Housing Agency. The aim is to evaluate if the rehabilitation and management of a public real estate portfolio is feasible while dealing with several constraints: the high construction costs that characterize the city, rents that match the spending capacity of the prospective tenants, and economic viability for the public entity.