“We house the poorest households in France but we are not at the heart of the aid announced”, indignant Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Social Union for Habitat, spokesperson for the HLM Movement, invited Thursday, September 15 on franceinfo. In a letter sent to Agnès-Pannier Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, she denounces the absence of tariff shields for social landlords in terms of electricity, while the price of energy has – in her words – become “crazy”under the pressure of the war in Ukraine.
Tariff shield: “We house the least wealthy households in France and we are not at the heart of aid”, regrets Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Social Union for Housing. Hlm organizations do not benefit from the limitation of gas and electricity prices. pic.twitter.com/fDpXwDAvQF
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) September 15, 2022
“We are not covered for collective electric heating. We do not benefit from any price shield. For the electricity that we use to light the common areas, we are considered as companies so we have no help”, laments Emmanuelle Cosse. According to her, the only price shield to which social landlords are currently entitled concerns gas prices. “But there again, we had to fight, we got it six months later than the others”she assures.
“When we buy on the energy market for next winter, we are on increases of three, five, even ten times the initial prices”continues Emmanuelle Cosse, referring to invoices “never seen” so far. While social landlords buy energy for their tenants and “reinvoice to the nearest euro”she recalls that they do not have the means to cope. “The difficulty is that our tenants, in the HLM sector, it is 35% of inhabitants who live below the poverty line, it is a large majority who only earn the minimum wage, so even increase by 25 euros per month is considerable, because they have no leeway”she says.
Emmanuelle Cosse, calls on the government to “calm anxiety”facing HLM tenants “who do not know how they will pay rent and charges in a few months”. “What we want is to benefit from protection for all tenants, whether they are heated by electricity or gas”insists Emmanuelle Cosse.
We must protect the most modest tenants, whatever their energy
Emmanuelle Cosse, President of the Social Union for Housingat franceinfo
Invited this Thursday from franceinfo, Gabriel Attal, Minister of Action and Public Accounts, ensures that the “People who live in public housing will obviously be affected by the price shield, for gas and electricity”.
The president of the Union sociale pour l’habitat also calls for “an acceleration of the renovation of housing”. According to her, even if “the French social park is the least energy-consuming park”it’s necessary “go faster”.
While the government calls for sobriety for all, Emmanuelle Cosse recalls that tenants of social housing “do sobriety”. “They are not people who spend a lot, they are already sober because they are often poor”, she summarizes. According to her, the question that now arises is “how we support them this winter, how we support them next year and the years to come”. She “waits” and “hope” that social landlords and their tenants will be helped in the next finance law, “because today we are not”she concludes.