“This is the worst time”, the homeless fear the arrival of the cold

Temperatures are falling but it is still too early to trigger the extreme cold plan.

For the homeless, with the arrival of cold weather, the most difficult season begins. Temperatures will sometimes drop below 0° during the night of November 25 to 26, but not enough to trigger the severe cold plan, which makes it possible to have additional emergency accommodation places. IThis requires several nights with negative temperatures. In the meantime, homeless people attend day centers, such as the one in the 15th arrondissement in Paris.

Around ten homeless people are there to prepare lunch on Saturday. People in very precarious circumstances or sometimes in the process of reintegration like Jean-Sébastien, employed part-time in a company in the social sector. He has just found a room, without water, electricity or heating, but a haven of peace compared to the winters spent on the street. “At the beginning we called 115, but there is not much chance of getting anything, since there are priority people, women with children, the elderly and at the end people who are alone and who can stay more or less outside, we are not priorities, necessarily“, remembers Jean-Sébastien. “And this is the worst period, we hope that it will not go very low. We are happy with the warming of the planet, sorry for the environmentalists”he smiles.

“At night you can’t sleep”

As for Issa, he will have to sleep in the street again after dark, like every evening. He will look for a building under construction or a sheltered and, if possible, isolated place: “If I find a place that is quiet, I put my cardboard and my sheet in a corner, that’s where we hide at night. We don’t even sleep, because it’s cold and because of the “insecurity. When you sleep, people steal your luggage. At night we can’t sleep, only in the morning, we sleep in the metro or we rest in the stations for a few hours, and we start again. But I have ‘hope that I will be given a room.’

“We are happy to see that some are able to obtain housing and we help them to file applications when we can.”

Claudie, volunteer at reception in the 15th arrondissement of Paris

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A room is the accommodation Issa should normally get in the coming weeks. This delights Claudie, one of the day center volunteers, who also feels guilty about having to let homeless people leave at the end of the day: “What is most complicated for many volunteers, and we talk about it among ourselves, is especially the closing of the reception. In the evening we close, it starts to get dark and cold, sometimes it rains. And we, we know that we will come home warm, that we will see our families, our friends, and not them.” This winter, 200,000 places are available in emergency housing. The government also announced 500 recruitments to help reintegrate the homeless.