Local practices addressing migrants' housing precarity: Evidence from the Veneto Region, Italy

Access to adequate housing represents one of the most critical and persistent challenges faced by migrants in contemporary European cities. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study conducted in the Veneto Region (Italy), this article examines how migrants' housing precarity is produced through the interaction of structural housing shortages, institutional arrangements, and socio-cultural mechanisms of exclusion. The analysis combines policy review, interviews with institutional and civil society actors, and three case studies of locally grounded initiatives addressing migrants' access to housing across different segments of the housing system. The findings show that migrants' exclusion from housing cannot be explained by individual vulnerability alone, but emerges from a dual failure of the housing system, characterised by a constrained and discriminatory private rental market and by an underfunded and institutionally exclusionary public housing sector. At the same time, the article demonstrates that locally embedded practices can partially counteract exclusion by mobilising relational and institutional infrastructures, including intermediation, trust-building, and sustained accompaniment. By conceptualising housing as a socio-spatial process rather than a static asset, the article contributes to broader debates on housing, migration, and urban governance, highlighting both the potential and the limits of local action in addressing structural housing inequalities.