Toulouse: still “a hundred children under 13” on the street, denounce the associations which write to the prefect
All charities and humanitarian associations alert the prefect of Haute-Garonne to the extreme precariousness that affects several hundred families in Toulouse, including “a hundred children under 13” who sleep on the street.
While the confectioners’ truce is in full swing, the situation is not improving for many families with children living on the street in Toulouse without lasting solutions being offered to them by the public authorities.
On December 23, it is all the charities and humanitarian associations – under the banner of the Collectif interassociations Toulouse, the Federation of Occitanie solidarity actors, the Regional Union of private health and social organizations and the collective of mutual aid and social innovation (Cedis) – who wrote a letter to the prefect of Haute-Garonne and the region Etienne Guyot.
200 calls to 115 every week
A letter which follows the recent visit to an accommodation which is reopening in the Roseraie district to accommodate 120 people (families), after a call for projects launched by the State services and awarded to a Toulouse association.
The “open letter to the prefect of Haute-Garonne” is mainly intended to pinpoint a lack of calendar for the care of all families with children who have no emergency accommodation.
“Other places will also be able to open by January thanks to the responsiveness of the organizations, their professionals and committed volunteers, noting the charities. These answers, within such short deadlines, must be satisfied and are proof that the associative actors are doing everything to meet the needs of people in difficulty on our territory. However, the schedule will not allow the immediate support of the nearly 200 people who, each week, request the “115” without obtaining a solution”.
Children attending school in Toulouse
The number of these homeless families would be even higher, according to the coordinator of the Collectif interassociations Toulouse Geneviève Geneva. “According to the figures that were communicated to us recently in the prefecture, there were 50 very vulnerable households, reporting themselves permanently to street teams or to 115, she explains. This represents nearly a hundred children under the age of 13 who live on the streets. If we count precarious housing, camps and squats, this represents 700 people, or 110 minor children, 75 of whom are under 12 years old. »
The vast majority of children are educated in Toulouse schools where the mobilization of parents and teachers to raise awareness of the cases of students living on the street is recurrent. “We recall that Olivier Klein, Minister of Housing, has undertaken to ensure that no child is on the street at night, insisting the signatories of the letter to the prefect. Also, Toulouse is recognized as a particularly tense and priority territory in the compulsory sheltering of children and their families. »
Finally, the Toulouse collectives are asking the prefect “for the organization of immediate humanitarian care for the people concerned at the hotel temporarily or in any other way”. “We are in a largely catastrophic situation, compared to previous years, denounces Geneviève Genève. Public authorities lack anticipation. »
Mechanisms put in place by the State services
Since November 2020, the prefecture has ensured that “all of the households accommodated in the hotel have been provided by the information, reception and orientation service (SIAO), thanks to State funding from 6 temps full of social workers and nurses. And to specify: “This evaluation made it possible to direct 550 people with rights towards a housing support measure, and among them 180 have already been rehoused. Similarly, 300 asylum seekers were able to be directed towards the national reception system thanks to the creation of new accommodation places for asylum seekers and the close collaboration with the French Office for Immigration and of integration”. The State services indicate that they have financed “780 new support measures towards and in housing for a budget of 1 million euros, which allow access to housing for 150 households staying in hotels, and 130 households leaving accommodation structures”.