For groups helping homeless students, pride and anger after an unprecedented year of mobilization

2023-07-22 12:00:10
The Never Without a Roof collective has mobilized to open the gymnasium of the Mazenod school in Lyon to two families on December 6, 2021. ANTOINE MERLET / HANS LUCAS

Although the schools may have closed their doors two weeks ago, the teachers and parents of students from the collective No child on the street, in Tours, are once again on the bridge. They are even “more mobilized than ever”, confides, with fatigue and anger, Julie (the people quoted by their first name wish to remain anonymous), teacher at the Michelet school: six families they accompanied have had to leave their emergency accommodation in recent days. In Lyon, Raphaël Vulliez and other members of the collective Never without a roof have not yet lowered their guard. They are worried about the fifty occupants, including children, of the Bellecombe gymnasium, and were to participate in a gala to support them, Saturday July 22.

In nine years of the existence of Never Without a Roof, Raphaël Vulliez had not known such a massive mobilization, and such a long one, in favor of street students: collectives were formed or expanded in about fifteen cities; they federated within the network of support for homeless students; they organized solidarity snacks, launched online pots to pay for hotel nights for the families concerned, challenged the public authorities; they occupied their schools, for several weeks or months, in order to accommodate there, in the evening after class, pupils and parents who had no other solution than the street. “It’s not like before, when there were fewer children involved and we obtained shelter in a few days of school occupation, recalls Mr. Vulliez, who is a teacher in the Croix-Rousse district. At the end of June, we counted 328 street children in the Lyon metropolitan area, which is unprecedented. »

Lyon and the other metropolises were not the only ones to experience the saturation of emergency accommodation, which nevertheless reached a record level this winter, with 205,000 places open each evening. In Tours, “We were several teachers who discovered in the spring that more and more children in our classes, despite being very discreet, were spending the nights outside, at the station or in the emergency room”testifies Vanessa, who teaches French to college students whose mother tongue is not. “When we realized that our children’s friends were in such situations, it became very concrete. Setting up this collective was also a way of supporting the teachers”says Roman, a university professor whose son is educated at the Michelet school.

Also read the survey: Article reserved for our subscribers School challenged by extreme poverty: “I had never seen high school students put aside food for friends”

“A small miracle”

Vincent, CP teacher, couldn’t take it anymore “Atrocious evenings in the master room, trying to call 115 and feeling helpless. From the moment we said to ourselves: “If we can’t find accommodation for a family, we sleep there, with them”, everything changed. » They were about fifty to invest themselves – all the teachers of the Michelet school, those of other establishments, as well as parents of pupils. And some have agreed to deliver the story of this adventure, one evening in early July, still at the Michelet school.

You have 58.33% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.