Five children among mold and exposed wires: saved from the house of horrors. There is also a newborn

A house infested with humidity, mold on the walls, compromised electrical systems, and five children, one just two months old, born prematurely, forced to live there.

This is the dramatic picture that the social workers from the Municipality of Menfi and the Ussm (Social Services Office for Minors) of Palermo found during a home visit, describing "precarious hygienic and health conditions" and a situation "such as to compromise the proper functioning of the electrical system".

The family, already being followed by the juvenile court, had no alternatives: no relatives to move in with, no financial means to rent a home, and, as reported in the report, "difficulty finding rental housing due to social prejudice".

The Juvenile Prosecutor's Office of Palermo has asked the Municipality to intervene immediately, urging the transfer of the family to a safe place. Hence the decision of Mayor Vito Clemente to sign an extraordinary ordinance to temporarily assign a public housing unit Iacp on Via San Giovanni Bosco, which has just become available after the keys were returned by the former occupants.

"It is our administration's moral and legal obligation to provide". A measure, therefore, that recalls the fundamental right to housing and the need to protect vulnerable minors. The assignment will last twelve months, the time necessary to find a stable solution. The handover of the housing has already taken place and it has been a race against time to restore dignity and safety to a family that, without this intervention, would have remained trapped in undignified conditions.