Saturated HLM park, record evictions, children on the street… “The social housing bomb has exploded”, warns the Abbé-Pierre Foundation

The year 2023 was “a dark year for the poorly housed”, victims of a policy of “budgetary rigor”, says the organization in its annual report on poor housing.

The warnings have come one after the other over the years. “We must all mobilize so that housing does not become the social bomb of tomorrow”, warned Olivier Klein, then Minister for Housing, at the end of 2022. Has the explosion finally occurred? At the end of a “dark year for the poorly housed”, “the social housing bomb has exploded”notes the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, in its annual report on poor housing, unveiled Wednesday January 31. “The year 2023 will remain that of an alarming worsening of the housing crisis”, “which has become a real estate crisis in general”concludes the organization.

The Abbé-Pierre Foundation estimates the number of homeless people in the country at 330,000, a population which has “more than doubled since 2012”. To escape the street, some live in hotels or in reception centers, but places are increasingly lacking, “despite a record level of accommodation places”. In November, nearly 8,000 people were refused each evening by the 115, including 2,400 minors, an increase of 40% over one year, according to the report.

This shortage of accommodation places is partly explained by the “sudden fall” access to social housing, which forces those accommodated to remain in emergency arrangements, observes the Abbé-Pierre Foundation. Overall, the low and middle classes are faced with a “saturation” of social housing, so that the rate of HLM requests satisfied each year has fallen from 22% to 17% in four years, notes the report. Queues are getting longer and the number of applicants has reached a record 2.6 million households in 2023.

More than 4 million poorly housed people in France

Poor housing is a scourge that is gaining ground. In 2023, 4.2 million people were deprived of personal housing or living in very difficult conditions, due to the absence of minimal comfort (running water, heating, etc.) or overcrowding. “accented”.

In its report, the foundation draws attention to the persistence of the phenomenon of substandard housing, which affects “more than a million people” In France. Buildings in danger threaten to collapse, unsanitary apartments are eaten away by humidity or exposed to lead. Very often, the health and safety of the occupants are threatened, hence the challenge of identifying these inhabitants, whether it is a small, modest owner who lets his property deteriorate, or a young first-time couple. a buyer overwhelmed by bills or a tenant who is the victim of a slumlord.

Beyond this hard core of 4.2 million poorly housed people, some 12 million other inhabitants are “in a fragile situation” facing the housing crisis, according to the organization. Half of them are “impoverished by unsustainable rent levels”while others live in homes that are too small or are cold in their homes in winter because they cannot heat themselves properly. “All energy poverty indicators are red due to the rise in energy prices”observes the foundation, which notes “an increase in unpaid debts” in 2022 and the absence of an exceptional energy check in 2023, unlike 2020, 2021 and 2022.

“Budgetary rigor” generates a “denial of fraternity”

Faced with repeated warnings in recent years, what has the State done? Not much, essentially responds the Abbé-Pierre Foundation. In 2023, she says she has seen a succession of “two ministers without a roadmap”who pursued a policy “whose guiding principle seems to boil down to budgetary rigor”. She denounces “a dizzying fall” spending by the State and communities over the years, caused in particular by “significant cuts” on aid personalized housing (APL). “The public effort for housing has never been so weak”with a decrease “equivalent to 15 billion euros each year” since 2010, according to the foundation.

The executive is accused of participating in “form of abandonment” of the most vulnerable populations. Faced with the needs however “priority” social housing, “the government is banking on ‘intermediate’ housing to house the middle classes”, deplores the organization. The production of these rented goods “at rent levels slightly below market” has doubled in five years and intermediate housing “appears as the big winner of the 2023 announcements”with a further doubling announced within two years.

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Abbot Pierre’s February 1, 1954 appeal for the homeless, the structure founded by the famous priest denounces “a denial of fraternity” In France. “Public policies are not only made by forgetting the poorest, but by attacking them directly”, asserts the foundation. She cites as an example the “historic record of rental evictions” beaten in 2022. For 2023, while waiting for the figures, “feedback from the field shows a hardening of this policy”, encouraged, according to her, by the adoption of an anti-squat law. Informal living spaces, such as slums, have not been spared, with a record number of evictions last year.

A good point for energy renovation

Stingy with compliments, the Abbé-Pierre Foundation awards some good points to the government, particularly for its “continuation of the Housing First policy” for homeless people. But its main satisfaction relates to the massive energy renovation effort for housing, which is the subject of a “real attention from the executive”. The foundation welcomes “promising reforms”with increased support from social landlords and new rules favoring low-income households and efficient renovations from 2024.

“Within housing policy, energy renovation seems the only one protected from budget cuts.”

The Abbé-Pierre Foundation

in its annual report

In five years, the budget for the renovation of private housing allocated to the National Housing Agency (Anah) has quadrupled. The Abbé-Pierre Foundation notes, however, that almost all of this envelope was used for the benefit of energy performance, to the detriment of the fight against substandard housing, which only represented 2% of housing renovated in 2022. This fight against the indignity of places to live “has long been the poor relation of public action”, deplores the organization, before making this wish: “Let the anniversary of February 1 remind everyone of their responsibilities.”