Friday, May 23, 2008

A stroll through Trastevere

Has anybody else seen this?
A couple of homeless people have decided to inhabit the facade of the ancient church of San Cosimato- complete with potted plants and a bookshelf. WTF?!?!
The city just spent millllllllllions renovating the piazza (and don't even get me started on that subject) because they wanted to lower the street level in order to expose the entire facade of this important church and NOW this is what happens?

These people are there day & night, it is literally their home. It's pretty much impossible to go near the church now, also due to the stench of urine- a corner has become a makeshift urinal for all the neighborhood's homeless & junkies. At least these two church residents aren't aggressive or annoying but enough is enough, come on!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd feel rather intimidated approaching the area because of the makeshift home. Where are the police? I would think it would illegal to live there!

Romerican said...

Yep, it certainly is illegal for them to be there. In fact, being the law-abiding, law-fearing citizen that I am, I went to the local Carabinieri station (which is right around the corner from the church) to report this incident and guess what they said??? "Yes, we know they live there, we tried to get them to leave but they keep coming back. We don't know what to do anymore".

Impressive huh? Glad to know that the police don't know how to enforce laws. This actually explains why Rome is such a madhouse. We have lots of sturdy, noble laws on paper but they're never enforced, people do as they please, and the city is going to hell in a handbasket. Sad but true...

Anonymous said...

I cannot STAND what they did to P. San Cosimato! Could they move the 2 homeless guys accross from the church to a spot in front of that ridiculous fountain maybe so they could at least hide some of the ugly?

anna l'americana

Romerican said...

Hi Anna!
I couldn't agree with you more- the piazza is beyond hideous now... a total waste of money.
yeah, they should use the homeless posse to cover up that ridiculous fountains ;)