Emergency shelters for the homeless opened during the health crisis extended for 10 months

"We will not put anyone on the street at the end of the winter break", exceptionally extended this year until June 1, 2021, explained the Ministry of Housing to AFP, which has decided to "perpetuate" these places " until the end of March 2022 "at least.

What to relieve the associations, which feared a return to the street of these people accommodated in emergency, half thanks to agreements with a hotel industry in need of tourists, in order to respond to the unprecedented situation caused by the new coronavirus and the injunction made everyone to confine themselves.

In total, more than 200.000 homeless are currently accommodated in accommodation centers or hotels. Maintaining the places created since March 2020 will cost 700 million euros and bring the annual budget devoted to emergency accommodation to 2,9 billion, according to the ministry.

"This decision makes sense, it is a way of putting an end to emergency accommodation management," greeted Pascal Brice, president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS).

For the general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Christophe Robert, it is the end of an "inhuman modus operandi", which consisted in sheltering the most precarious in winter before sending them back into the streets each spring.

Beyond March 2022, "these places must be permanently perpetuated", adds Florent Guéguen. "Vigilant" on this objective, the director general of the FAS admits however "confident": difficult according to him to imagine Emmanuel Macron putting thousands of people back on the street next year, on the eve of the presidential election.

New poor and evictions

To fight homelessness, the government is also counting on its "Housing First" plan, which has made it possible to install 235.000 people in sustainable housing since the end of 2017.

The prefects should receive instructions to "accelerate the allocation of very social housing" to the homeless, detailed the ministry. The program also promotes their exit from the emergency accommodation system to family pensions and develops the use of rental intermediation, with private owners renting their accommodation to associations which sublet it at low prices to one person. in difficulty, thanks to additional state aid.

However, these efforts remain "insufficient", according to associations. Because if it is difficult to know precisely how many people are left homeless before the next INSEE survey scheduled for early 2022, the situation remains tense.

"The Covid has created new poor people, and despite the accommodation efforts made, many isolated single men have been left behind," recalls Mr. Guéguen, stressing that "thousands" of calls to Samu Social ( 115) still lead to a refusal of accommodation every evening.

With the end of the winter truce on June 1, associations also fear the resumption of evictions after the exceptional measures taken to limit them in 2020. More than 30.000 households are threatened with eviction, or double before the pandemic.

A situation anticipated by the ministry, which recently issued a circular asking the prefects that any eviction be accompanied by a proposal for rehousing or accommodation. Thirty million additional euros have also been allocated for the housing solidarity funds of the departments, intended to finance aid to prevent unpaid debts.

"We will (...) offer rehousing or accommodation to each person concerned and compensate the owners when we do not evict immediately", promised the Minister for Housing Emmanuelle Wargon Friday on France Inter.

"The owners, who are sometimes modest people, retirees" will be able to receive "a sum equivalent to the rent", she added.

In the longer term, the associations also underline the difficulty of rehousing the homeless outside the emergency accommodation system, because of the construction of social housing "too weak".

Since the start of the "Housing First" plan, the production of "very social" housing has fluctuated around 30.000 units per year, instead of the 40.000 desired by the government.