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What if the offices became united? Busy during the day, they empty at night and yet are always heated. The “Bureaux du Cœur” offer businesses the opportunity to open their doors to provide shelter to the homeless at night and on weekends. #IlsOntLaSolution
27,000 is the number of homeless people in France, according to the Abbé Pierre 2020 Foundation report *. Faced with this observation, Pierre-Yves Loaec, Nantes business manager, founded the Bureaux du Cœur association in 2019. The principle is simple: allow a homeless person to sleep in the company’s premises once empty, at night and on weekends.
The beneficiary takes advantage of a secure and heated place to rest, cook and wash. “It’s calm, it’s a fairly spacious, dynamic space and I need to find a dynamic“, explains Fortune, welcomed in the offices of Pierre-Yves Loaec. The guest can also count on the employees of the company for” nudges “and advice, a means of opening the dialogue between two worlds which rarely come together on a daily basis.
For the host company, few improvements are to be expected. Most of the offices are already equipped with kitchens, sanitary facilities and showers. Only a sofa bed and insurance were paid by Yves Le Gohebel, company director, to welcome Moustapha. “We are a small link in the chain that allows people who need it to have a new start “, says the leader. An enriching human experience for all, “it allows me to regain confidence in life“, adds Moustapha, homeless.
In just a few months, the Bureaux du Cœur now has fourteen new branches across France. The association does not intend to stop there, its new objective: to welcome 4,500 people within three years.
* To which are added 16,000 people living in slums, 100,000 in reception centers for asylum seekers and 185,000 people in accommodation centers.