Toulouse: a marauding of Secours Catholique for New Year’s Eve
This evening, Secours Catholique is carrying out its New Year’s Eve marauding aimed at people in great precariousness reported by the 115. Report.
Solidarity action that has become a habit. Every year, for Christmas and on December 31, the Secours Catholique de Toulouse carries out a New Year’s Eve maraud for the most suffering public. “After the call from 115 to define people in great precariousness, we are starting this evening from 7 pm to midnight, this tour in the city center and the surrounding area,” explains Andrew Nguyen, coordinator of the wandering pole of Secours Catholique. With a food distribution and also, during this holiday season, gifts ”. These raids also consist in “flushing out” the homeless who do not call 115 and directing them to associations such as the SIAO providing education for children.
Audiences made up of women, isolated men, including young people from 18 to 25 years old, sometimes students and forced to go out for food: “In Toulouse, thanks to the associative fabric in particular, if the homeless do not die from hunger, they can succumb to the cold with all indifference, ”laments Andrew.
In 2021 requests have exploded. The pandemic is of course involved, but not only. “Even though the state has tried to maintain the shelter, a lot remains to be done.”
The patrols also identify isolated people with clinical signs of covid.
“People supported by the Permance of access to health care (from the La Grave hospital (Pass) and sheltered in a hotel in Balma. The Secours Catholique provides food. Once the isolation lifted, Social Watch takes over to find accommodation in 90% of cases ”.
This year, an unexpected participant is invited to this marauding. Éric Pélisson, Commissioner for the fight against poverty at the prefecture of the Occitanie Region, is part of the adventure this evening and also presents on January 1 during the distribution of breakfasts at the Ostalada. “I took up my duties a year ago in Toulouse and I have already carried out several marauding activities with the Restaus du Cœur and the Red Cross,” he explains. A way to salute the remarkable work of volunteers and also to meet the beneficiaries. Audiences often far from the images of Epinal conveyed here and there. Insecurity is manifold. She doesn’t just concentrate in tents. Like the working poor who sleep in their cars. An increasingly large audience ”.