Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Bertolé: "Appeal to Milanese people to report people in difficulty living on the streets". From today extraordinary opening on weekends of the Sammartini Center. Vaccines and medical screening for new entries into facilities - Help for the homeless

Milan, 4 December 2021 – The Cold Plan restarts with the expansion of places in reception facilities for the homeless. In addition to the approximately one thousand places available in the city all day all year round, many centres, both owned by the Administration and offered by Third Sector bodies, will be opened gradually according to needs: among the addresses already active for the Cold Plan there are those in via Pollini, via Belluno, via Fleming, via Pedroni and viale Ortles (Casa Jannacci) for a total of 260 seats. To these, other structures made available by the Administration will be added in the coming weeks, such as the mezzanine of the Central Station and those in via Barabino, viale Puglie, via Sammartini, via Caio Mario and porta Vigentina, with the possibility of a further expansion if the situation required it.

Entry into the facilities is coordinated by the Sammartini Center in via Sammartini 120 which is the access point for all services for the homeless and which, starting from this weekend and to meet the needs of the winter season, is expanding its opening hours. opening hours: from 9am to 13pm and from 14pm to 18pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, from 14pm to 18pm on Wednesday and from 10am to 17pm on weekends and public holidays. Anyone who shows up at the counters will immediately be approached by an operator who will take care of understanding their needs and requirements: a double step that will guarantee faster procedures and responses. In 2020, the Sammartini Center supported over 3.300 people in need by providing over 6 thousand services (bed space, canteen, showers, etc.). 

Every user who accepts a bed in the facilities will be subjected, thanks to the collaboration with Italian volunteer doctors who will ensure the presence of their operators and the mobile medical unit in front of the Sammartini center, to a screening visit to verify their state of health and suitability for community life. Thanks to the support of ASST Niguarda, the Covid-19 vaccine will also be administered to new guests who still do not have it. Everyone will also be invited to take the Mantoux Test in collaboration with Villa Marelli.

In collaboration with ATS, the procedure for the placement of people identified as positive at the COVID Hotel and the administration of rapid swabs for symptomatic people is also active. All reception facilities are organized with protocols aimed at preventing the spread of the infection: sanitization and sanitization measures, temperature measurement, temporary isolation for symptomatic patients until the administration of the swab the following morning.

“The cold plan – comments the councilor for Welfare and Health Lamberto Bertolé – has characterized the Municipality's action towards the homeless for many years now. It is no longer an emergency plan, but structured and aimed not only at intercepting the primary need for a bed during the winter, but also at engaging the so-called 'diehards of the street' to try to start a broader process of re-inclusion with them and support for autonomy. In the winter months, meeting them and convincing them to accept a place in our facilities, a choice which - we remember - must be spontaneous and never forced, becomes particularly important. This is why we ask for the help of the people of Milan to be our eyes in the city and to point out people in difficulty who live on the streets so that our interventions can be as timely as possible."

The reporting service is managed, on behalf of the Municipality of Milan, by the Milanese Committee of the Italian Red Cross and by Fondazione Progetto Arca and coordinated by the Sammartini Centre, which responds, seven days a week and twenty-four hours a day, on 0288447646. The Sammartini Center it also organizes the monitoring of the situation in the city through the night and day mobile units of 19 associations that collaborate with the Administration. This year too there will be approximately 15 beds available at the Piccolo Rifugio reserved for homeless people who are identified at night by the mobile units and convinced to accept hospitalization in the centers and who will therefore be able to spend the night in one of the places reserved for emergencies. The following day, through the Sammartini Centre, they will be able to check the possibilities for more stable accommodation.

The services provided under the Cold Plan also include the spaces of the nine day centres, places that offer daytime reception with services that respond to primary needs through canteens, laundries, cloakrooms, medical clinics, the hairdresser and they engage the homeless in relational and educational courses with workshops and socialization and recreational activities. Finally, in front of the Sammartini Center there is also the distribution of clothes and clothing with a mobile wardrobe managed by the "Detto fatto" cooperative which takes care of the public showers in via Anselmo da Baggio open from 9am to 18pm continuously from Monday to Saturday. A laundry service is also available on site.