Florence residents help pensioners to pay soaring utility bills after state plea

‘I am terrified of the gas bill. If it doubles, I’ll eat in the dark,’ says one 95-year-old Italian retiree

Elderly Italians are struggling with soaring energy bills (AFP/Getty)

Residents of Florence have donated more than €5,000 (£4,196) in two days after the city appealed for people to help local pensioners pay soaring utility bills, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday.

The announcement follows a plea by local authorities on Sunday to lend a helping hand to the city’s vulnerable senior citizens, many of whom live alone and subsist on a pension of less than €1,000 a month.

The initiative “adopt a bill” movement was spearheaded by the municipality of Florence and local non-profit Fondazione Montedomini in a bid to ease the strain of Italy’s massive 50 per cent hike in gas and electricity bills.

Although Italians have long readied themselves for the rise in prices, the winter months have laid bare just how much they have impacted citizens.

This is particularly the case in Florence where approximately 27.6 per cent of the population is over the age of 65 and retired, and where about 33,000 senior citizens live alone.

“I am terrified of the gas bill,” one 95-year-old Florence resident told la Repubblica. “If it doubles, I’ll eat in the dark. If I can’t pay it, I simply won’t pay.”

Florence last week protested the rise in bills by turning off the lights for 30 minutes in three of its top landmarks – Palazzo Vecchio, Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Along with them, another 8,000 towns and cities, including Milan, Turin, Florence and Bologna also plunged into darkness.

“The rise in bills has become unsustainable. Florence is switching off symbolically for 30 minutes to ask for concrete help from the government,” the city mayor Dario Nardella said on Twitter.

The Italian government is currently working on a new aid package worth €5-7bn to help families and companies cope with the financial strains created by heavy demand for gas and rendered worse by the ongoing pandemic.

“The government is preparing a far-reaching intervention,” Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said last week.

Italy needs to have faith in its “extraordinary capacities”, Mr Draghi said. “This is the Italy I work for, for which we should all battle, because Italy’s history passes through all of us."

Despite the prime minister’s words of encouragement and his enviable financial expertise, the burden posed by the soaring utility bills is unlikely to lessen any time soon. And so far in Florence, financial aid for the more vulnerable members of the population has not come from the government but from fellow citizens.

“It’s a wonderful sign, which I’m very proud of,” Mr Nardella said.