Absolute poverty in Italy involves nearly 5.7 million people, about one-tenth of the population. This is the finding of the Caritas Report "Blades of Grass in the Cracks. Responses of Hope", released yesterday. The analysis also shows that "poor and intermittent work is rampant, with low wages and atypical contracts preventing a decent life". Particularly vulnerable are young people and families with children, with housing deprivation an emergency, families homeless or in inadequate housing conditions. Access to education and new technologies is becoming a "mirage" for increasingly large segments of the population, fueling inequality, Caritas notes. The Report also records the number of people accompanied by Caritas services in 2023: there were 269,689, an increase from 2015 of 41.6%. Chronic and intermittent poverty also increases: from 54.7% to 59%, as does psychological and psychiatric distress among those who turn to Caritas: from 2022 to 2023, the number of people suffering from depression or mental illness increases by 15.2%.