2024-02-01 10:53:02
“It’s an unforgettable day. » On December 27, 2023, Jalila Touadjine and her four children moved to 16e floor of an HLM in the Rives du Cher district, in Tours. At first, the youngest, aged 2, paced around the three-room apartment saying: “our house is beautiful”says the 38-year-old mother with a smile, also delighted. “It’s big, secure, warm, quiet, stable…” A haven, eighteen months after this graduate with a master’s degree in computer science left Algeria, on a tourist visa, because she feared for the life of her daughter, born after three boys and suffering from serious parasitosis.
She chose Tours because a doctor on the ferry recommended the hospital to her. The child was hospitalized there several times. I had to live ” to the right and to the left “, spending nights in cars, an abandoned house, on the street, often failing to obtain places in emergency accommodation. “There were hard times”, confides Jalila Touadjine. Especially when she understood that we risked taking away custody of her children.
She never stops thanking the Emmaüs volunteers 100 to 1: “They gave me a roof, furniture, and also more courage to continue. » This association was created in 2010, in Tours, with a simple idea: one hundred people commit to each paying at least five euros per month for two years, in order to provide housing for a family and to support them until so that she regains her autonomy.
Seventy collectives
Jean-Luc Morigny was one of the first members: “There were around twenty of us who met in circles of silence, in support of undocumented immigrants, and we chipped in so that families could go to the hotel. Jeannette and Philippe Garnier thought about a lasting solution, which also brings to life the memory of Abbé Pierre. » 100 pour 1 has thus integrated Emmaüs, offering a complementary solution to the communities of the same name, often reserved for isolated people.
“Not many people thought we would make it, including us”, says the former bookseller, now 79 years old. And yet… The Touraine association now has 700 members. Fourteen families are housed and supported by volunteers. A dozen others no longer need it. “There is even an Albanian family who bought a house, and another an apartment”greets the president, Sophie Jouhet, retired speech therapist.
The 100 for 1 association has also managed to spread, sharing advice and statutes. Around seventy collectives have been formed across France, but only one in Ile-de-France, where the amount of rent has discouraged potential contributors – this is where the number of people on the street are most numerous. A small part of these collectives has affiliated with Emmaüs. “The important thing is that it develops, that everyone can do something on the ground, while there are always people on the streets, exiled or not, argues the president of Emmaüs France, Antoine Sueur. 100 to 1 is a beautiful extension of the appeal that Abbé Pierre launched just seventy years ago. »
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