Dormizil: A Place to Call Home

The hospitality we know

We know what it means to welcome. We do it every day at La Perla and La Posta, where hospitality is not just a service but a gesture of care, attention, respect. We believe every person deserves a space where they feel protected, where they can rest, where they can find themselves again. This is why we support Dormizil, an organization that takes this principle to its most radical and necessary consequences.

First a home, then everything else

Dormizil was founded in 2020 in Bolzano by nine private citizens who decided to do something concrete about homelessness. The organization's very name – a fusion of "dormire" (to sleep) and "domicilio" (domicile) – tells this story: no longer just an emergency night shelter, but a real home, a dwelling where people can rebuild their lives. Not another temporary dormitory, but something different: applying the Housing First model, the one that in Finland reduced homelessness from 20,000 to fewer than 4,000 in thirty years. An approach that reverses traditional logic. First a home, then everything else. First stability, then the possibility of addressing problems. First dignity, then the journey.

Breaking the vicious circle

The numbers regarding homelessness in Italy speak clearly. Those living on the street have a life expectancy reduced by 20-30 years compared to the national average. Untreated chronic illnesses, worsening mental health problems, addictions that become daily companions. The vicious circle is well known: without a home you can't get treatment, without treatment you can't work, without work you can't find a home. Housing First breaks this circle: it gives you an apartment immediately, without asking you to prove anything, without demanding that you be "ready." And then it accompanies you.

The projects: home, transition, dignity, community

Today Dormizil runs several integrated projects in Bolzano.

DormiHOME consists of eight small apartments, furnished and ready. People pay social rent, maximum 35% of what they earn. They can keep pets, they can register residency, they can live. The contract renews as long as they respect basic rules of coexistence. It's not a stopover, it's their home.

DormiTIME offers five beds for those in transition: you're waiting for an apartment to become available, you're finishing a therapeutic program, you need a few months. Three maximum, six in special cases. Clear rules, no alcohol, no violence, quiet hours. A bridge, not a destination.

DormiWASH showers, washing machines, a space to wash with dignity. Because hygiene is not a luxury, it's a right. And for those living on the street it becomes impossible. Volunteers and a social worker will be present, not to control but to be there.

DormiHUB is the ground floor open to everyone: building residents, associations, citizens. Readings, exhibitions, workshops, meals together. Because integration doesn't happen when we separate "us" from "them," it happens when we share spaces and build something together.

Winter in Bolzano

In winter, from October to April, Dormizil also runs dormiWINTER: 25 beds every night, managed entirely by 120 volunteers. This year it reopens on October 17th, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It will be the fifth winter. The building is rented, heating costs, adaptations and management are covered only with private donations.

Then there are the seven apartments: dormiLIFE. Rented from the public housing institute and sublet to people who until shortly before were living on the street. With support, with accompaniment, but above all with the certainty that this is their place.

Our support

Casa Costa Foundation supports Dormizil with a contribution of €6,600. An amount that corresponds, ideally, to the annual Heating Package needed to cover heating, electricity, bed linen cleaning, and waste management for the dormiWINTER winter shelter: €550 per month for twelve months. We know that cold is not just discomfort, it's danger. And that keeping warm a space where people can spend the night is not charity, it's protection of life.

We don't earmark this contribution. We don't ask for detailed accounting of how each euro will be spent. Because we trust. We know the value of those who understand that welcoming means first giving space, then presence. They will use these resources where they're needed most: perhaps indeed for heating the winter shelter, perhaps for the dormiHOME social worker, perhaps for the dormiWASH washing machines. Those who work in the field every day know better than us where the need is most urgent.

The same language of hospitality

We recognize ourselves in this work because it speaks the same language we speak in our facilities. The language of true hospitality, the kind that asks for nothing in return except mutual respect. The kind that starts from the simple idea that every person has the right to their own space, to a moment of peace, to a place where they feel safe.

Dormizil demonstrates that it can be done. That with will, competence and adequate resources, the cycle of housing precarity can be broken. That home is not the final prize for those who made it, but the necessary starting point so that anyone can make it.

This is our idea of regenerative tourism: not only making our facilities more inclusive, but supporting those who work so that hospitality becomes an accessible right for everyone, starting with those who need it most.