Law No. 112/2016—officially titled "Provisions for assistance to persons with severe disabilities lacking family support," commonly known as the "After Us" law—is sound in its principles and aims. Yet the implementation decree of November 23, 2016, shows it falls short when it comes to providing the practical tools needed to carry those principles into effect.
First, let's be clear: this law doesn't sweep away everything that already exists. Parents who have already placed their children in housing solutions different from those this law envisions can stop worrying about their children's future.
Article 1 invokes the foundational articles of the Italian Constitution—articles 2 and 3, which protect fundamental rights and equality, and article 32, which guarantees the right to health, and article 38, which guarantees the right to social assistance. It also references the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (whose tenth anniversary has just passed, though Italy still struggles to implement it concretely). The law underscores the need to promote the wellbeing of people with disabilities, their full inclusion in society, and access to social and health services that allow them to live well when family members can no longer care for them. It stresses the importance of creating an individual plan—already mandated by Law No. 328/2000—drawn up by multidisciplinary evaluation teams (made up of experts from various social and health sectors) with the involvement of the person concerned and/or their caregivers. This plan is meant to safeguard the person's future and ensure their full development. The law also establishes the role of a "care manager" responsible for monitoring whether the personalized plan is actually being carried out. In short, both the law and decree lay out every worthy and sensible principle—but implementation and funding are handed over to the regions, which immediately opens the door to unequal treatment.
See also The New "After Us" Law: Knots Still to Untie
The law does clarify what protections are available to safeguard people with disabilities on the material side. It lists the private law instruments that families of people with disabilities can use to set aside property and resources for their loved ones: insurance policies, trusts, special funds with dedicated use restrictions, and fiduciary management contracts, including in favor of nonprofit organizations. Most importantly, it introduces—and this is the most significant innovation—substantial tax breaks for these instruments: greater deductibility for insurance, and exemption from inheritance and gift taxes on assets placed in a trust for people with disabilities. Yet even here, if we compare ourselves to the thousands of deduction opportunities available in America, we're still far behind.
This is what we might call a mixed welfare intervention. It means the state and local public bodies (regions, municipalities, health authorities) act on one side, while private action—the resources that families and private donors contribute to funds that can then be supplemented by public money—works on the other.
The state has created an assistance fund to finance various housing projects for people with disabilities. But the allocated resources—90 million euros for 2016, 38.3 million for 2017, and 56.1 million from 2018 onward—unfortunately fall far short of what's needed to create independent living options for all people with severe disabilities across the country.
Private organizations can apply for funding from this pool, provided their projects' goals and structure meet all public requirements. Here we hit another sore point: while the law aims to prevent institutionalization—to avoid returning to the kind of large facilities that once resembled old asylums or sprawling hospitals where people lost all individuality—the decree imposes overly strict standards for housing solutions. A maximum of five people per residential unit, and no more than two units in the same facility. This means that well-known communities like Arcobaleno or Chicco, which we know well, actually fall outside the scope of the available funding.
We can say this law reflects the direction of social policy in recent years: assuming limited state resources (everyone can form their own judgment), it treats the integration of public and private intervention as essential, even encouraging private initiative in line with the principle of horizontal subsidiarity (Article 118 of the Constitution). This principle holds that initiatives should originate from the ground up, with the state filling in where private actors cannot manage alone.
Many fundamental questions remain unanswered—questions this law does nothing to resolve. They're left, instead, to the efficiency and initiative of individual regions, and to the means and goodwill of private parties. For instance: what about parents who have no resources to set aside? And expecting families, already worn down by managing daily struggles with their loved one, to organize themselves into complex projects—opening funds, establishing group homes—is simply unrealistic. These families need help from trained professionals or experienced organizations to think through and build long-term plans. This could happen through mutual support groups where parents meet regularly to face these questions together and, if they choose, pool their resources—money, property, whatever each can contribute—for their children's future. Who will help them do this? I believe Fede e Luce can play a role here too: helping families feel they are not alone.
Annick Donelli, 2017