The trend has thus increased by almost 130% since 2012, the date of the last INSEE study.
The number of homeless people in France has more than doubled in ten years, according to the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which estimates their number at around 330,000 in its annual report presented on Wednesday. Homeless, in emergency accommodation or in a center for asylum seekers, homeless people have seen their number increase by nearly 130% since 2012, the date of the last INSEE study on this subject, estimates the foundation. .
«This is still a fairly conservative estimate.“, assured during a presentation to the press the director of studies of the foundation, Manuel Domergue. This figure includes some 200,000 people in emergency accommodation, 110,000 migrants in reception centers or accommodation for asylum seekers, plus around 27,000 homeless people, sleeping in the street, the metro, in a tent or in a car.
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In total, 4.15 million people are poorly housed, estimates the Foundation, which calculates this number based on a 2013 INSEE survey. This category includes people in forced accommodation with third parties (including their family, for those over 25), as well as those living in a place that is far too small or deprived of basic comforts (kitchen, toilets, heating, etc.). A large part of theTravellers“, suffering from poor housing conditions, also falls into this category.
The «halo“poor housing, which includes situations of fragility such as fuel poverty or unpaid rent, concerns 12.1 million people, according to calculations by the FAP based on 2013 data.impoverished by unsustainable rent levels», people who were cold at home because they could not afford to heat themselves, those forced to live in too small accommodation, tenants with unpaid debts and owners in a condominium in difficulty.
This year, in a chapter titled “The type of homelessness», FAP looked at the specific vulnerabilities experienced by women and LGBT+ people. They are at risk, the study reveals, of falling into poor housing at four points in life: leaving the family home, marital separation, inheritance and widowhood.
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Low-income households vulnerable to inflation
Inflation, which has accelerated significantly in 2022, puts low-income households in difficulty by increasing their constrained costs (housing, travel, food, etc.), notes the Foundation. A person with the RSA, or a single-parent family, can quickly find themselvesin the red“, or with a starving remainder to live, simply by paying these constrained expenses, explains the Foundation, which calculated the budget of household-types (fictitious) in several communes like Aubervilliers and Tarbes.
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As in previous years, the FAP is troubling the government, judging that 2022 has been “almost a blank year in the fight against poor housing». «The gap has rarely seemed so wide between, on the one hand, the state of poor housing (…) and, on the other hand, the insufficiency of public responses to make housing affordable“, she warns.
The aid distributed to mitigate the impact of inflation, such as the tariff shield, is not, according to her, sufficiently targeted. Aid for the renovation of MaPrimeRénov’ housing, the envelope of which was increased in the 2023 budget, is deemed insufficient because it finances few efficient renovations and leaves the poorest with an insurmountable burden. “To the richest, on the one hand, permanent, massive measures; to the poorest, on the other hand, specific measures“, was indignant the general delegate of the Foundation, Christophe Robert.
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“Against the Poor”
L’«public effort for housing“, bringing together aid for people and production, in 2021 only represented 1.5% of gross domestic product, a figure which has not been so low since at least 1991, denounces the FAP. The control of rents, and the fight against Airbnb-type seasonal rentals, are still too timid, she adds. Regarding social housing, the savings measures of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term have been maintained, despite the rise in the Livret A rate which has increased the debt of social landlords.
The state even conducts policiessometimes against the poor“, asserts the Foundation, targeting the reform of unemployment insurance, which aims to reduce the duration of compensation, or the proposed anti-squatter law examined Tuesday by the Senate. On the most urgent front, if the government has given up on cutting places in emergency accommodation, “the very fact that he considered reducing them is a rather worrying signal for us“, judged Christophe Robert.
On Wednesday, during the official presentation of the report at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris, the Minister Delegate for the City and Housing, Olivier Klein, is expected to respond to criticism and to present the new plan “housing firstwhich aims to facilitate the return to housing of homeless people.
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