VENICE – RM, the 86-year-old homeless man who for months had chosen the landing stage of line 2 of the station as his “accommodation” did not make it. Four days ago, the 87-year-old Roma ethnic from Serbia, who had always refused accommodation or to follow the socio-medical workers who visited him every evening, had felt male and had agreed to be admitted to the Civil hospital. But the other night he had a crisis and doctors and nurses did their utmost to revive him but to no avail. Probably, the aches and pains of age, the more than precarious hygienic conditions and theexposure to cold they got the better of the homeless man who the street workers had managed to convince to leave his filthy post only after nine months of trying. “His” corner full of blankets, bags and rubbish had aroused the indignation of passers-by for months, not so much for his presence as for the fact that it is not humanly right for a person to be able to stay in the cold under those conditions. The fact is he stubbornly refused any kind of help and it was not possible to give it to him by force. For months, thanks to the League of the Municipality, the Department of Social Policies, the deputy mayor Andrea Tomaello, the local police, and the psychiatric service of Ulss 3, it had been possible to at least monitor his health conditions on a daily basis.

Poor health conditions

Precisely those had worsened at the beginning of the week and he had let himself be persuaded to be taken to the hospital. The Councilor for Social Cohesion, Simone Venturinihe was confident about the beginning of a path that would lead the elderly to one protected structure, warm and refreshed. «I hope – he had said – that the psychiatric service manages to persuade him to favorably consider the path of the protected structure, as an alternative to the precarious life that he has chosen». The search for relatives was also uselessended with the discovery of a son residing in Friuli, the only one of the 9 who had been willing to meet him. But he too had been rudely dismissed from the father. The Municipality of Turin, before the elderly man arrived in our area, had started the process for inclusion in the RSA, but the project was not followed up due to the lack of will of the Serbian elderly man. RM, whose last documented residence is in Turin, was arrived in Venice in May 2022always living on alms. The only constant was the refusal of any kind of help or assistance from both volunteers and social workers. Even violently. The only possible way, compulsory medical treatment (Tso) had never been considered feasible.