“It’s terrible poverty and I weigh my words“. Joël Defontaine, president of the Restos du Coeur de la Sarthe, cannot believe it. Since the start of the health crisis, the number of people helped by the association has exploded. It has gone from 8,500 to 12,000 l last year. And Joel Defontaine fears a new influx with soaring gas and energy prices. “I am very worried because when I see registrations that have been starting for a while now we have an average of 9-10% increase“. In Mans but also in the countryside, in the thirteen restaurant centers.” It is not petty poverty. There is only five cents missing in the pocket. It is really great poverty and it has increased a lot because of the Covid“.
Students, young workers and isolated women particularly affected
Last year, the 750 volunteers of the Restos du coeur de la Sarthe served 1.6 million meals. The crisis has prompted some students and young workers to ask the association for help. “When we say precarious young people, it is apprentices. It’s really young people who want to work and it’s not the ones who screw around, no! They sleep in their car, some, and they don’t have enough to live on“.
Another face of poverty, these women who raise their child (ren) alone. “Single women with babies. You just have to look at the queues, there are kids in the strollers who are three or four months old, who are bundled up and who are coming right now.“. The association has counted 350 children under three years of age among its beneficiaries. Single-parent families who have sometimes been let go by their parents. “Parents are impoverishing themselves, some for example, can no longer cope. And so, they kick mom and kids out. When I say fuck out, I put it in parentheses. But that’s exactly it“.
Joel Defontaine also observes young people who no longer have the means to treat themselves or who choose not to do so to save money. ” We have a dramatic self-medication of this audience. When we know that the Sarthe is medically damaged. In terms of care, six months to have an appointment with the homeless, six months for people in the street. No it’s now or never“.
– yann lastennet
The countryside is not spared
If the agglomeration of Le Mans concentrates two thirds of the beneficiaries, poverty is also spreading to the countryside. “For example, we register 6 to 10% additional registrations in the centers of Suze or Chartre Sur le Loir“. But there are also those who cannot move, for lack of means of locomotion or simply means.
So the Restaurants decided to come to them by creating a route center which will be operational in January. ” You can imagine in the days of mobile trucks that came for groceries, butchery, etc. It will be the same. We have a truck that is being fitted out. There will be food. There will be hygiene products and there will be the possibility of reception. The idea is to go to small rural communities preferably. North and South. We will ask the local mayors to provide us with a communal room and to be able to welcome the public with dignity.“. A truck which will be supplied by a new logistics base which will emerge on a land of 2500 m2 with a barnum, loaned by the automobile club of the west, near the straight line of the Hunaudières.
If you want to help the Restos du Coeur de la Sarthe or make an online donation, just go to the association’s website
Listen to Joël Defontaine’s interview here