2024-02-01 10:59:55
“My friends, help… A woman has just frozen to death, last night, at 3 o’clock, on the sidewalk of Boulevard Sébastopol, clutching the paper with which, the day before yesterday, she had been expelled…” The 1is February 1954, Abbé-Pierre launched his famous appeal.
Seventy years later, the foundation that bears his name draws up a still alarming observation of poor housing in France, in its 29e report on the subject published this Thursday. Its general delegate, Christophe Robert, even believes that despite the warnings, “the social housing bomb has exploded” in the country.
330,000 homeless people
According to him, the government has not taken “any major decision” to remedy the crisis, despite the numerous proposals made by all the players in the sector within the framework of the National Refoundation Council (CNR) to housing, which he himself co-chaired last year. And the public effort for housing has never been so low, at 1.6% of GDP, compared to 2.2% in 2010.
Result: 330,000 people are now homeless in the country. And emergency accommodation structures are saturated. “Every evening, last November, 8,000 people who called 115 were refused, including 1,400 minors,” says Christophe Robert. This figure fell to 4,500 people in January, thanks to the opening of new places. But this remains insufficient, and “there are also people who no longer even call, because of their refusal,” he is alarmed.
In this regard, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, nevertheless wanted to recall that the budget allocated by the State to emergency accommodation “reaches an unprecedented level of around 3 billion euros per year. year”. And that “the mobilization of public authorities has never been so strong, with an average of 203,000 emergency accommodation places over the last three years”. That is more than twice as much as ten years ago.
Regulation of lagging tourist accommodation
This winter, however, still saw its share of deaths on the streets. But beyond these extreme and dramatic situations, many households experience real difficulties in finding housing, and decent housing, at affordable prices. 600,000 live in substandard housing. 2.6 million are waiting for social housing. “We have never seen this,” worries the general delegate.
The production of new HLM is at half mast. In 2023, 82,000 approvals were issued, compared to 124,000 in 2016. The fault, in particular, according to the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, is the reduction in solidarity rents (RLS) imposed by the executive on social landlords – which has undermine their investment capacities.
More broadly, the entire housing construction chain is stuck. The number of construction starts fell to around 287,000 over one year, in 2023, compared to 435,000 in 2017. And the executive no longer sets any overall production objective. Even if the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, has just promised a “supply shock” as part of his general policy speech.
In old residential properties, the high price level is holding back the market. Renting a property in the private sector has become a real headache, with supply falling by almost 60% in five years, according to professionals, while demand increased.
Absence of minister
Stronger regulation of furnished tourist accommodation – to avoid a reduction in the number of accommodations dedicated to residents in certain areas – is struggling to see the light of day. Although the government has been saying it is in favor for months.
“It’s dragging, it’s dragging, when we need rapid measures,” continues the general delegate of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation. The executive did give its support to a bill on the subject, adopted at the beginning of the week by the deputies at first reading, but it wanted to procrastinate on taxation.
If new towns have been authorized to use rent control, Christophe Robert regrets that this system remains only experimental, for the municipalities which wish it. And that applications are “closed today”.
This general situation has, according to him, dramatic consequences for the most vulnerable. “The decline in the number of affordable housing is putting pressure on the Housing First policy,” he regrets. This policy, which aims to get homeless people off the street, to offer them lasting housing.
Concerns regarding the SRU law
In this context, the absence of a decision regarding the appointment of a delegate minister or a secretary of state dedicated to Housing is seen as a dramatic waste of time. The Prime Minister’s speech on Tuesday was also not likely to reassure the foundation, with Christophe Robert even seeing it as a provocation.
Gabriel Attal proposed including intermediate housing – intended for the middle classes – in the compulsory quota of social housing imposed by the SRU law in a certain number of cities. “A very bad blow to the law,” said the general delegate, who recalled that already, nearly two thirds of cities do not respect it.
More than 600,000 unworthy housing units in France
Public policies implemented to reduce substandard housing in the country have not been enough to stem the phenomenon. Although a figure is difficult, the Abbé-Pierre Foundation estimates that there are more than 600,000 of these homes that might harm the health, safety and dignity of their occupants. “It is also a symptom of the housing crisis,” insists Manuel Domergue, the organization’s director of studies.
A bill on the subject was adopted at first reading in the National Assembly, and “this is going in the right direction”, he believes. But for him, there is a lack of actors on the ground to support households and communities.
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