“The State is disinvesting in the issue of emergency accommodation and does not wish to create new places”, deplores a deputy mayor

According to Léa Filoche, there are “both more people calling Samu social to request emergency accommodation and a drop in the number of places in emergency accommodation centers in Paris.”

In Paris, more than 3,000 people sleep and live on the street, a figure up 16% compared to 2022, according to the latest Solidarity Night census, an operation carried out every year by Paris town hall. “The State is disinvesting in the issue of emergency accommodation and does not wish to create new places”deplores on franceinfo Léa Filoche, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of solidarity.

franceinfo. This winter is starting even worse than previous winters?

Léa Filoche. Absolutely. We have all the signals that are red, whether from the point of view of attendance at day centers, food distributions, luggage storage or requests for appointments with social workers. Unfortunately, we are starting to get used to it, even if we cannot resign ourselves to it. What alerts us much more this year compared to previous years, and which is perhaps more serious in the way in which, today, the State does not concern itself with this subject, is the question of families in the street, which poses a serious concern, particularly because it seems quite unbearable to us that in the 7th world power, there are around 400 children sleeping outside in the Parisian streets.

The problem is as much the lack of emergency accommodation and social housing as a lack of mobilization at government level?

There is a combo, that is to say that we have both more people calling the Samu social to ask for emergency accommodation and a drop in the number of places in accommodation centers emergency in Paris. So obviously, it can’t come in, it inevitably creates people sleeping outside and entire families, in dramatic conditions. So yes, we are asking that there be more emergency accommodation open while waiting for people to be able to enter pathways that could lead to social housing. But there are empty places in Paris to provide emergency accommodation: empty hospitals, empty hotels, empty offices. So it is not true that there is no space for emergency accommodation in Paris. However, additional resources are needed. And what we see today in inner Paris is that the State is withdrawing from the question of emergency accommodation and does not wish to create new places. And so this obviously creates completely crazy dichotomies which put everyone in danger, especially families and their children.

What the State does not do, the town hall cannot do ?

The Suzanne Valadon high school in the 18th arrondissement was requisitioned to accommodate families who had until then been sleeping in schools in the 18th arrondissement. So yes, we do it, but we don’t want to do it. We do not want local authorities to take charge of the question of emergency accommodation, for many reasons, but the first is the fact that the State is responsible for it, this makes it possible to guarantee equality treatment of all people who need emergency accommodation on national territory. If these skills pass to communities, including from a budgetary point of view, it poses a lot of problems, particularly in the way in which we regulate the question of emergency accommodation on the national territory. What we need is not for the State to make an unspoken transfer of responsibility for the question of emergency accommodation to communities, it is for the State to put in place a national plan to construction and obligation to create emergency accommodation places in all communities in France.