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Poverty: “1,700 children encountered in the street since January 1,” indicates the association Utopia 56
Poverty: “1,700 children encountered in the street since January 1”, indicates the association Utopia 56 – (France 2)
Every night, they face the cold, the rain and the wind. France Télévisions met street children, sometimes in school, who go unnoticed in playgrounds on a daily basis.
A festive atmosphere and sparkling windows. Yet, in front of the windows of Parisian department stores, homeless children sleep every evening. A woman and her six-year-old granddaughter are from the Czech Republic. They have been sleeping on the street for several months. “I can work here, I can do anything. I just need a place for my daughter to sleep. She goes to school, but we’re still on the street.”, she says. Every night, there are dozens of them in the heart of the capital.
Emergency centers overwhelmed
The state has an obligation to find accommodation for all homeless people, but emergency centers are overwhelmed. In France, recently, an Algerian mother and her daughter were first welcomed by relatives, before finding themselves outside. For the past 15 days, due to lack of space in a shelter, they have been sleeping on the street. “We have younger and younger children, children with disabilities, people who have been completely abandoned. In Paris, 1,700 children have been encountered since January 1. A third of them were under three years old”explains Nikolaï Posner, of the Utopia 56 association.
