2023-08-30 06:00:27
Tents set up in the garden of the Saint-Sernin basilica, in Toulouse, on July 26, 2023. The prefecture having decided not to renew the hotel nights of more than 250 people, some have invested in this camp with their children. PATRICK BATARD / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
“The previous government broke its promise of ‘zero street children’. They are even more numerous. It’s not sustainable”, warns the president of Unicef France, Adeline Hazan. Almost 2,000 children were left without accommodation the night of August 21 to 22 after their families managed to reach the emergency number 115, reveals the fifth barometer of street children published on Wednesday August 30 by the organization international and by the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS), which brings together 900 organizations and associations.
This number is increasing: 1,990 street children is more than double the number observed on January 31, 2022, it is also 20% more than on August 22, 2022 and, above all, 56% more than on January 30. 2023, at a time when the government had increased the emergency accommodation system to a level never reached in the past, with 205,000 places in total. The number of single women on the street with children is also rising sharply, by 46% in one year. “And again, these are minimum estimates, which do not take into account either unaccompanied minors, or families who cannot reach 115 or do not even try anymore, discouraged by refusals”underlines the president of the FAS, Pascal Brice.
On the ground, the situation is even darker. In the Lyon metropolitan area, the collective of teachers and parents of students Never without a roof, mobilized in favor of homeless children, is facing an unprecedented situation since its creation in 2014. “Families sheltered in the winter no longer systematically stay there on sunny days, although the law provides for the continuity of emergency accommodation. For example, 80 families were returned to the streets on August 7, with children aged only 3, relates Raphaël Vuillez, founding member of Never Without a Roof. In total, there were 395 homeless children in the metropolis, three times more than last summer. There are infants, families with fairly serious health problems, and also pregnant women. »
Obstacle course
Eighty families began occupying the Bellecombe gymnasium at the end of June, thinking they would quickly be sheltered. Almost all of them remain unresolved, less than a week before the start of the school year. Collectives similar to Never Without a Roof have been formed or strengthened in fifteen other cities: Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Grenoble, Saint-Etienne, but also Le Havre, Saint-Nazaire, Fougères, Tours or even Argenteuil, Rosny, Ivry-sur-Seine and Pantin in the Paris region. Some have housed homeless families in schools or private homes, or organized collections to fund hotel nights.
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