Northern League Party: No help to immigrants with rent arrears

Northern League Party has come out strongly against a plan by the City of Council of Bologna to pay rent for immigrants facing financial problems.

The City Council of Bologna originally received some 224,000 Euros from the Ministry of Labour to pay rent for immigrants who were previously hosted in the immigration reception centres.

After doing so, almost half of the funds remained unused. That’s when the City Council decided to use them in helping immigrant families facing financial problems and have rent arrears.

The aim of the City Council was to save the immigrant families from eviction.

Councillor Manes Bernardini (Northern League) termed the measure inverse racism (racism against Italians). He said the funds should be used to help Italian families facing similar problems.

Bernardini holds that if immigrants no longer have the means of continuing to live in Italy, they should be helped to return to their home countries.

He said they can’t allow themselves to guarantee certain privileges to non-EU immigrants since they don’t have means of doing so to even Italian citizens.