Sandro is 68 years old. He is an elderly person in severe economic and housing difficulties due to life events.
He lost in his later years, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the only part-time job with which he managed to survive. Since then, his conditions have deteriorated: despite his good will, he has not been able to find another job.
After the death of his parents—whom he cared for over the years, affected by Alzheimer’s and debilitating stroke—he was left without a family support network.
This collection of charitable acts and beneficence is aimed at restoring new hope and comfort to a fragile and disadvantaged person.
After an honest, sober life without vices, but unfortunately marked only by fixed-term, precarious, and part-time jobs, today Sandro finds himself with a low social pension, insufficient to cover all expenses related to rent, electricity, gas, and water bills, and the essential medications for his age and the chronic conditions he suffers from.
Unfortunately, sometimes life is not as we imagined it or as we fought for with dedication. One may feel like a loser, no longer seeing a light beyond the tunnel of poverty.
Let us help Sandro find, at 68, a light of hope and a smile again.
Sandro will soon have to leave his unhealthy, damp accommodation lacking adequate heating. Moreover, the rent—now too expensive relative to his modest resources—takes up almost all of his pension. He is looking elsewhere for simple but more decent accommodation, where he can live a dignified old age, but the task is difficult: the financial guarantees he can offer are minimal, and even the payment of two months’ rent in advance for a new contract or moving expenses are impossible for him to afford without the help of benefactors sensitive to the poverty of their neighbor.
Over the past twenty years, after losing his main job in 2007, Sandro has lived on the margins of poverty.
He owns no movable or immovable property, cannot afford transportation, and to survive has had to forgo—due to indigence and economic uncertainty—many medical treatments, not only dental but also specialist care. He suffers from osteoarthritis, arthritis, and herniated discs that often prevent him from leading a normal life.
Coming from a poor family, he has not been able to rise above his origins. In recent years he has lived on a modest part-time salary, barely sufficient for a roof and some food. Now, he risks losing that roof: without concrete support, Sandro could find himself homeless, unable to sustain the expenses necessary for new accommodation.
The stress accumulated over the years—between hardships, deprivations, anxieties, and the constant fear of losing his home—has weighed heavily on his already precarious health.
For years he kept his economic distress hidden, out of shame and discretion. He suffered injustices and abuses at work: in December, before Christmas, he received in his paycheck only 40 or 50 euros as “salary.” He was humiliated and often ignored, marginalized by society, ashamed of his condition and trying to hide it, without ever receiving a gesture of solidarity or attention.
Yet, despite everything, Sandro maintains a solid faith. In prayer and trust, he hopes to meet compassionate people who will help him cover the essential expenses to find new accommodation, where he can live with serenity and dignity, and begin to hope for a better life again.