A first Solidarity Night in Dijon to count and meet people on the street
First Solidarity Night this Thursday, January 20, 2022 in Dijon. Nearly 70 people, citizens, social workers from the Sdat or the Red Cross, but also elected officials spent a large part of their evening with people on the street. A counting operation but also meetings.
Collector of information to improve structures
The operation initiated in Paris in 2018 thus gained momentum this year and was organized for the first time in the City of the Dukes as in 17 other cities in France this Thursday and Friday, from Lyon to Bordeaux via Dunkirk. Objective: to collect information that will be used for the INSEE census. Questionnaires which the cities will also use to improve the reception structures for these homeless people, explains Antoine Hoareau, deputy mayor of Dijon, in charge of solidarity, social action and the fight against poverty and at the initiative of this Night of Solidarity in Dijon. “Two studies will be necessary, one by INSEE and one by the Compas firm, in the service of the territories, and they will identify all these questionnaires and draw some lessons from them to have data on our systems. I am an elected official and we have this ambition to find solutions. This is our objective at the town hall of Dijon.”
A call widely heard by Dijon citizens
In Dijon, the city had launched an appeal to its inhabitants and nearly a one hundred applications have been received. In the end, about twenty citizens were selected for this operation. Françoise, a retired social worker, took part because she doesn’t want to be disconnected from this reality.
A citizen accompanied this Thursday evening by Thomas Dumont, head of service at the Sdat and who knows the field well, and by the elected official, Antoine Hoareau. After a marauding in the Gare district, the vice-president of the municipal center for social action in Dijon, draws several lessons.
“We realize to what extent these are people who have the feeling of being forgotten by the majority of society” Samantha, a volunteer from Dijon
Citizens who crisscrossed the city center of Dijon in threesome with a social worker and an elected official, like Killian and Samantha, two volunteers who were able to meet Tonio, a 40-year-old from Dijon, who has been living on the street for several years. “It’s good what they are doing, maybe it will help to get things moving.”
A first assessment of the answers obtained will be given in a few weeks, in the spring. promises the town hall, which is already considering a second Night of Solidarity but this time rather in summer.