Immigrants cannot request asylum in Italy without having an official place of residence. Asylum seekers are not even permitted to present themselves for consideration at the Questura (Rome’s Central Police Office, under the Ministry of the Interior) without demonstrating they have an address to which they can be traced and at which they can receive mail. This is one of the first fundamental rules that must be learned by individuals who arrive in Italy fleeing from war and persecution.

Generally, this information is passed on by word-of-mouth, through accounts by co-nationals and through casual encounters in the corridors of the Termini Railway Station. While seeking this first stepping stone in the bureaucratic process, refugees and asylum seekers arrive at Via degli Astalli 14/A—perhaps without even knowing that there they can also eat and shower. This initial reception is the first interaction with Centro Astalli for all of its clients.

Reception is generally quick: for more in-depth meetings, there will be more time later on. But from that first moment forward, the green door two steps away from Piazza Venezia will become a familiar place. Some time later, usually after an asylum seeker has obtained his or her first permesso di soggiorno (“permit of stay”) document, the initial provisional yellow ID card will be replaced with a “definitive” one, the so-called carta blu (“blue card”). But more important than the color of the card, there is a change in the attitude itself towards those who present themselves for daily appointments at Via degli Astalli. With time, Via degli Astalli becomes the place where one asks questions and is listened to, and where one has translated the incomprehensible forms that must be continually completed in paper-loving Italy.

Each day Astalli’s staff members struggle with dozens of requests for residence and packets of mail to be distributed. It is work that demands a lot of attention: from among the heaps of correspondences that arrive daily, from advertising leaflets to coupons for the city’s shopping centers, there can be found responses from the Commission communicating the recognition of refugee status, or National Health Care Service cards, or letters arriving from far away that serve to warm the heart. Often, refugees continue to correspond by mail through Centro Astalli long after their first arrival at the center. This privilege offers them the chance to recount new events in their life.

Some of these immigrants “make it”: they obtain documents, find work, rent an apartment. Once in awhile some return to announce a marriage, the birth of a child, or the opening of their own business endeavor. Others, unfortunately, continue to remain at the periphery, without any benchmark of their progress.