Base presence made landlords prefer Americans over native Italians for housing

Evidence

When Vicenza native Enzo Ciscato and U.S.-born Annetta Reams started looking for a home as newlyweds in the 1980s, Ciscato remembers, the preference for renting to soldiers’ families was so great that they had trouble finding an apartment. Eventually, a friend introduced them to someone in the housing office of Vicenza’s main base, Caserma Ederle. When the staffer learned that Reams was an American, he said, “Oh that’s great!” Then he told Ciscato to “shut up” when visiting apartments. “Act like a couple of Americans, because if they know you are Italian, they will not rent to you.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 899

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete instance of the housing-market distortion claim made earlier in the book about other base towns.