“A small law” which is “a challenge to the SRU law”, deplores former Minister of Housing Emmanuel Cosse

The president of the Social Union for Housing denounces the bill presented by the government on housing. A text which “will not change the situation” according to her.

“The housing crisis is extremely serious and we are being offered a small, extremely technical law which supposedly will change the situation”, castigates the former environmentalist Minister of Housing Emmanuelle Cosse on Friday May 3 on franceinfo. The one who now heads the Social Union for Housing, the organization representing the HLM sector, sees in the bill presented this Friday in the Council of Ministers of “demagoguery”.

The text defended by Minister Guillaume Kasbarian plans to relax the SRU law, imposing on cities a rate of 20 or 25% of social housing. From now on, intermediate housing with higher rents will be taken into account. According to Emmanuelle Cosse, this reform is “an incomprehensible challenge to the SRU law which is one of the foundations of the Republic”. Intermediate housing “won’t change the situation” For “municipalities which do not even have 10% of social housing 20 years after the application of the law”she regrets.

“What is needed above all is an unfailing defense of the application of the SRU law”, she pleaded. Of a little more than 2,100 municipalities subject to this law, around 1,100 are off limits over the 2020-2022 period, according to the ministry. For the former Minister of Housing of François Hollande, it is necessary that “Every week, the prefects see with the recalcitrant municipalities why they are not building, why a particular piece of land has not been transformed into social housing rather than doing private development.”

“The lowest number of building permits”

She also takes an uncompromising look at the bill. Faced with an unprecedented housing crisis, “we must develop a massive supply of housing”, she defends. Gold, “there is a fire and we offer a drop of water”, she points out. Among these “water drops”the government has introduced provisions to more easily end the lease of the wealthiest tenants. “If we put rules of operating ethics on the HLM park, there is no problem” but that only concerns “a few thousand tenants” when the number of households waiting for HLM reached a record level of 2.6 million.

“We have proposals that focus on a very demagogic subject”undermines the one who is at the head of the confederation of social landlords. “Today, the minister is choosing to focus his communication on ‘well-off’ HLM tenants who do not exist or are in the very minority at a time when we have the lowest number of building permits”she denounced.