What does it mean to be resident in a comune?
In a few words ,it means that a person lives habitually in communal territory, usually but not necessarily sleeping at a precise address (it does not matter if it is a castle,an appartment, a room, a small house , a hut, a tent, a caravan, a grotto, under the columns of a bridge or something similar).
Having an official residence (that is, being registered in the archives of the comune)
in the place where actually you live is a person's right (even if he is "homeless", that is without a "normal" home, which is juridically utilizable as a civil habitation). It is a right from which many others derive: the right to treatment on the national health service, the release of an identity card, the right to social assistance, enrolment on electoral registers, both political and administrative (this last only for Italian citizens and European Union citizens.)
Not only the "homeless", but also persons of no fixed abode have the right to officially registered residence. If a person tours Italy without ever stopping (because he is a travelling salesman, or because he is resident for two months in a hostel in Rome, and another two months in Milan and so on for the whole year) and he has not yet got official residence in the comune where he was born or where he lived previously, he has the right to have, in one of the comunes he frequents ,his own registered residence, being "of no fixed abode".
While the "homeless" are actually residents in the comune where they have official residence, those "without fixed abode" are, on the other hand, persons that, so as not to give up a series of rights, elect (that is, choose) their registered residence picking the comune in which they feel most at home . (And here they will be able to ask for social assistance, be on the electoral roll, etc.) Comunes are obliged by law to allow both the "homeless" and those of "no fixed abode" to register an official residence.
The "homeless" may ask to be registered in the place where they actually live (for example , at 14 kms up the Via Salaria, under the flyover); or they may ask to be enrolled as if they had their own address, together with persons "of no fixed abode", at an address on a road that does not exist but which is dreamed up by the the mayor of the comune (some comunes , with less imagination call this street:, for example: Via della Casa Comunale, or Via del Municipio, etc.)
In Rome, on the initiative of the Comunity of St Egidio, a motion of the Comunal Juncta (delib. N. 84 , 26 February 2002) allows persons of no fixed address to register at a fictitious address , in Via Modesta Valenti. It is an absolutely virtual street, yet at the same time real, because it enables its residents to be not identified immediately as "vagabonds" as would be the case of those whose documents recorded residence in Via della Casa Comunale, or something similar.
Modesta Valenti was woman who lived at the Stazioni Termini. One day she was taken ill, but was not given help "because she was dirty"..
This was in Rome -- but the same thing happens also in other cities, that have followed the good example of the Capital -- the Comune agreed , however, with some voluntary associations to allow the "homeless" and those "of no fixed abode" to register at the address that these associations indicate (usually a canteen, a hostel, or an advice centre).
It is a question of another legitimate way of giving an official registered residence to those who have no roof over their heads or do not always live in the comune but have chosen it as their comune of residence.
This , however, does not authorize the mayor (that is, the registry offices) to refuse registration directly in Via Modesta Valenti; nor, much less, to deny it to those with a lodging, even if improper, in a caravan or shack.
Residence is in fact a fundamental right of liberty (that of choosing the city where you live) and an irrenouncible feature of the personality (each person, in fact, belongs to a community and has the right to be a member of it, even if he is poor).
If some-one is a foreigner, then registration of residence has added significance, because the period of residence influences the granting of citizenship and the obtaining of official permission to stay in the country.
It is not, in short, a right to be underestimated, but a necessay premise for making the city an inclusive society, not delimitted by census but really universal.
