Rome’s housing standoff deepens as Spin Time sale offer rejected
Mayor Roberto Gualtieri’s attempt to purchase the squatted building from InvestiRE SGR has been blocked by safety regulations, leaving hundreds of residents, including 100 children, in limbo.
Hundreds of residents, including approximately 100 children, have maintained a nine-day sit-in on a Rome street following the police evacuation of the Spin Time building. The displacement occurred after a minor fire broke out on July 29 in an unoccupied lower-floor room, prompting magistrates to place the seven-storey former office block under judicial seizure and declare it unfit for habitation.
Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, announced that the city’s offer to purchase the building from the owner, InvestiRE SGR, was rejected. The fund stated that inspections confirmed the structure does not meet current safety standards, which legally precludes handing possession to the city and rules out any interim arrangement for the residents. Gualtieri expressed irritation at the rejection, noting that the Church had attempted to persuade the owners to proceed with the sale.
The governing right-wing Brothers of Italy party has pressured the mayor against proceeding with the purchase, arguing that using public funds would reward illegality. Meanwhile, the fund has long planned to develop a luxury hotel on the site, and Spin Time has been listed by the government as a site to be cleared for years.
In response to the crisis, the city plans to place qualifying residents in alternative accommodation within 60 days. However, activists intend to maintain the sit-in to pressure the government, citing the building’s role as a cultural hub and their right to housing. The camp has drawn support from notable figures, including Nobel laureate Giorgio Parisi and Pope Leo XIV, who has been updated on the situation by Cardinal Baldassare Reina.
Conditions on the street have deteriorated under a heatwave pushing temperatures past 40 degrees Celsius. On August 6, a two-year-old girl fainted in a Red Cross nurse’s arms due to the heat and conditions. Residents describe the eviction as a politically motivated move that exploited an emergency to remove vulnerable families, with many fearing they are being treated as second-class citizens.
