Conversions needed to provide student beds quickly - rectors

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 9 - University rectors on Tuesday called for existing state property to be converted into student accommodation rather than for new residences to be built as an immediate solution to the student rent crisis in Italy.
    "There is no question that there is a rent problem," the president of the Rectors' Conference Salvatore Cuzzocrea told ANSA, referring to the recent protest by a student who camped outside a Milan university to highlight the prohibitive cost of renting rooms in the northern business capital.
    "However, we are working with University Minister Anna Maria Bernini and we recently delivered places to 8,000 students," he continued.
    "We are now working with mayors to find properties belonging to the state, municipalities and confraternities that can be quickly converted into student residences.
    "The Rectors' Conference does not want to build new buildings but to reconvert buildings to provide lower-priced housing to students right away," concluded Cuzzocrea.
    On Monday Bernini on Monday launched a working group of experts tasked with providing rapid answers on the issue of university housing and the right to study as part of government plans to create 14,000 additional beds for students in the coming years at a cost of 567 million euros.
    The move came after the Rector of the Milan Polytechnic, Donatella Sciuto, expressed her support for Ilaria Lamera, the 20-year-old student who was camping out in a tent to protest against the high cost of rent in Milan.
    "As rectors it is something we have been denouncing for a long time. I also told the mayor: Milan is a city for the elderly and wealthy and we need housing not only for students,but also for those who graduate and whose salary does not pay the rent".
    Official figures say one-room flats in the Italian business capital are rented out for as much as 600 euros, compared to 275 in another university city, Perugia in Umbria. (ANSA).