Italian towns of Calabria will pay you $ 33,000 to move in

Why bother sweating out your mortgage every month when quaint postcard towns in Italy will pay you to settle there?

The Italian region of Calabria is implementing a plan to increase the population of declining towns by offering people up to $ 33,000 to move to sleepy hamlets of less than 2,000, according to CNN.

There are over seven cities to choose from, located in the mountains and on the ocean, but there are a few captures.

Applicants must commit to starting a small business, either by taking over an existing business or creating their own. And they have to be professionals that cities are actively seeking, reports CNN. And baby boomers don’t need to apply: Applicants must be under 40 and be ready to relocate within 90 days of approval.

“We are fine-tuning the technical details, the exact monthly amount and duration of funds, and whether to also include slightly larger villages with up to 3,000 inhabitants,” Gianluca Gallo, regional adviser, told CNN. “So far we have generated tremendous interest from the villages and hopefully if this first program works, others will likely follow in the years to come.

The project is called ‘active residence income’ and aims to boost Calabria’s appeal as a ‘southern workplace’ – southern Italy’s renamed version of remote working – explains Gianpietro Coppola, mayor of Altomonte, who contributed to the program. .

He says it’s a more focused approach to revitalizing small communities.

“We want this to be a social inclusion experience,” Coppola told CNN. “We want to bring people to live in the region, enjoy the surroundings, beautify unused places in the city such as conference rooms and convents with high-speed internet. “

The program, which has over $ 850,000, will be launched in the coming weeks and applications will be available online.

More than 75 percent of Calabria’s roughly 320 towns have fewer than 5,000 people living there, according to CNN. Residents fear that some communities will disappear unless young people settle there.

“The aim is to stimulate the local economy and breathe new life into small-scale communities,” said Gallo. “We want the demand for jobs to match the supply, which is why we asked the villages to tell us what kind of professionals they lack to attract specific workers.