Paris: “It would cost less to take care of people on the street”, says Léa Filoche
While a large solidarity meeting is organized at the Hôtel de Ville this Wednesday, January 11, the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of solidarity Léa Filoche reminds her of her fight in favor of a dignified and unconditional welcome for people with the street.
“We will be there to help families and street children. It’s a question of dignity, of humanity”, launched the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo this Tuesday, January 10 in front of the elected officials of the city and the metropolis, explaining that no one could “close their eyes to the distress that is knotted under our windows” and calling on the State to “urgently implement a global plan accommodation” for all of these people and more particularly children.
State finger pointing
Absent from the big solidarity meeting organized at the Town Hall this Wednesday, the State is often singled out by solidarity actors, accused of not taking its part in welcoming people on the street. Today, “the participation of the State is below the needs”, confirms with CNEWS Léa Filoche, the assistant to the town hall of Paris in charge of solidarity, the fight against inequalities and against exclusion, who takes advantage of this meeting to “sound the alarm bells again”.
For the deputy, it is also a question of “developing proposals” at the expense of the City, but which the State “could appropriate”, “with the creation of places of accommodation, the improvement of social support and pooling of teams in this area”, and above all to “advocate with public opinion” and “let it be known that we cannot resign ourselves to the fact that in the 6th world power, there is families and children sleeping outside.
“It is not because we open a shelter in a place that real estate will lose 20% there”, asserts the elected official, who believes that “it is always better to have humanized places and dignified for those who are on the street than to do nothing”. “The State must take the measure of the disaster” she said, convinced that “it would cost less for everyone to take care of these people with dignity and properly”.
Solutions to be implemented
According to the deputy, three solutions could already respond to a certain number of problems experienced by Paris and its region, but not only. First, with the opening of a “locked place” to allow people who arrive on French territory, particularly on the asylum process, to take stock of the health, psychological, social and administrative aspects, “like what “We did for the Ukrainian refugees”, recalls Léa Filoche, who evokes a system of “national distribution in order to bring into play the solidarity of the whole country”.
Then, with “the very significant increase in emergency accommodation places” coupled with a real policy of “social reintegration”. “In the street, there are people who have experienced accidents along the way, excessively long periods of unemployment, illnesses, there are people who have nothing to do outside, who are active in the emergency psychiatric, with disabilities”, underlines the deputy, who castigates the state of “saturated devices” and “in any case not adapted”. An emergency in his eyes to which we must respond “on the national level”.
Finally, the national coordinator of the Generations movement pleads for the regularization of undocumented migrants. “Today, the accommodation systems are saturated by people who have nothing to do there, because a large part of them work and are integrated, but are undocumented”, she says. , evoking a “kind of gray zone” in which the latter have “the right to nothing, moved from one hotel to another”. “Very difficult” situations, according to her, “especially for children” who cannot project themselves into something lasting and reassuring.
And this, while the number of places of accommodation in particular in hotels decreases, with the return of tourists. “We provided accommodation places in empty hotels for two years, for lack of tourists, but today even historically social hotels stop doing social work for tourism”, testifies the elected official, reporting 4,000 to 5,000 fewer places in 2022 alone, according to figures from Samu social.
“Too many people outside”
The Night of Solidarity, organized next Thursday, January 26, should make it possible to know if this fall had consequences on the number of people today on the street. Surely, according to Léa Filoche, who says she is “worried” to see the figures start to rise again, after three years of decline. “The general feeling that emerges, whether from associations, agents or residents, is that we can clearly see that there are far too many people outside, in particular families”, she fears.
See you on January 26 for the 6th edition of the Night of Solidarity!
Register now to participate in the field in this #NightThatCounts. @Paris count on you. https://t.co/V02YgIXGkA
— Lea Filoche (@leafiloche) January 5, 2023
As for the solution of requisitioning the empty places, the deputy does not have much hope. “In Paris, we have reached the end of the capacity of empty places, there are not many left and the square meter is expensive both literally and figuratively”, she underlines, before recalling that there are still two emblematic ones: the Hôtel Dieu, which belongs to the AP-HP, and the former Val-de-Grâce hospital, which belongs to the Ministry of the Armed Forces”.
So many empty places or offices, which require adjustments, with the installation of toilets, showers and common areas. “All this requires resources, and for the moment, the State is not releasing anything”, regrets the one who does not intend to resign herself for all that, and intends to continue to “work on a daily basis with our means, our skills and our networks to try to improve the daily lives of people on the street.