Homeless people take drugs in front of tourists
The tourist’s face is incredulous. For a long moment, his expression hangs between wonder and fear. The visitor, a foreigner in his fifties, is about to enter the main monument of the Neapolitan rehabilitation, but stops abruptly. U-turn: it’s better not to go from here. In front of him, one of about 10 homeless people who populate there 24 hours a day Umberto Gallery – pants down and snare in mouth – he’s getting a hole in his leg. The subject in question – as confirmed by the associations – is infectious.
Yet we are in the middle of tourist Naples, and we are in the middle of the morning. The scene just described dates back to around 10.30 on Boxing Day, and is set a stone’s throw from the San Carlo (Angiporto side). A few hours earlier, a bar employee had narrowly escaped from one bottle by Peroni always launched by a homeless person. Almost guerrilla scenes.
While in the Vittorio Emanuele in Milan the Swarovski tree stands out, in the Umberto I in Naples there are no lights but drug addiction and social hardship reign. The anger of the traders is skyrocketing: “They throw bottles of beer at us – is the cry – We can’t go on like this”. The protocols are signed, the commitments are made, the restyling works are programmed. Even economic investments have become reality in the Galleria: there’s the private night surveillance and they are coming Starbucks and Mondadori in the premises currently closed (plus other luxury entrepreneurs ready to invest). Yet, unfortunately, we are always at the same point. The degradation is back and, moreover, it is intensifying.
The homeless have returned en masse to repopulate the main living room of the center with camps, they urinate everywhere (and not only), they take drugs. They wreak havoc by discouraging business and tourists. «Our bartender doesn’t want to work anymore – he sighs Antonio Visconti, member of the Funee bar, recently opened under the arcades of the Angiporto – He is afraid of homeless people. They are aggressive, they threaten us. At Christmas they entered the club 2 times and threw bottles of beer at our employees, who risked a lot. The institutions take charge of it: the Gallery cannot be left in this state. I understand all the difficulties, but these are not ordinary clochards: these people are dangerous. We ask that the Municipality and the ASL intervene with a Tso or with a measure that can remove them from Umberto I. We need a municipal regulation against bivouacs, at least in the monuments. We are losing a lot of revenue: customers don’t consume in dirt and tension. We also fear for the health issue, as well as for safety ». As mentioned, the commitments are not lacking. The scenario of Umberto I, however, at the moment is by no means free from shadows. On the contrary. The floors (whose work should start by mid-2023, as announced by the council of Palazzo San Giacomo) are destroyed.
To weigh on the fate and safety of Umberto I then there is the question of night gates, which we have been talking about for almost a year now, but without any concrete steps. The Municipality and the Prefecture agree with the closure of at least two of the 4 access gates. But the opinion of the superintendency has been awaited on the subject for many months. Bureaucratic times are slow, you know. And they are also inversely proportional to those of degradation. So many promises. But the reality remains what it is. «The Gallery, from a symbol of the history and beauty of Naples, has been transformed into the representation of the degradation that is affecting our city – denounce the parliamentarian of Europa Verde Francis Borrelli and the radio announcer Gianni Simioli – Among the many problems, the homeless emergency stands out the most, given that it has to do with human dignity, really managed in a questionable way. The situation worsens day by day, the fortune camps extend, as well as the unmanageability of several cases. There are homeless people who attack merchants, citizens and tourists, who defecate, urinate and “hole” themselves in public, offering a gruesome show to visitors. We need decisive action, as we have been denouncing for some time. No more buffer solutions, no more content to temporarily appease criticism. It is time for a city like ours to be able to protect its places of interest and restore a dignified life to those in need of help and assistance”.