The number of RSA beneficiaries increased by 20% in 2020 in Vaucluse.
This is a consequence of the health crisis: the closure of hotels and restaurants, the confinement of agro-food companies have made many seasonal employees unemployed.
The Active Solidarity Income is essential to pay rent and bills.
In Vaucluse, the associations which welcome these poor workers evoke a fight against poverty which becomes a struggle for survival.
Job lost with the health crisis
At 25, Wiam is a master’s student in mathematics in Avignon. Since the health crisis, she has calculated more since her mother lost her job with the health crisis: “she worked from time to time in a hotel as a cleaning lady”. This single woman with three student children therefore asked for the active solidarity income, essential for her daily life: “we do not have no money to eat, no money to pay for accommodation. The Restos du Coeur help us eat but not with winter clothes. We talk a lot about money between us since we no longer have any “.
Borrow from neighbors to eat
This father of two children was to come and testify at the microphone of France Bleu Vauclusem, but finally “No. He prefers to remain anonymous. For him, it’s like him display a label on the head. For his children, he prefers to keep his dignity “.
It is therefore her neighbor Anissa who describes the situation of this Avignon resident: “He is not coping because of the health crisis. He is helped by the Red Cross otherwise he could not eat. Before the Covid, he was a maintenance worker in restaurants. He lost his job. He cannot pay for his social housing. He had nothing in his fridge. It was us, the neighbors, who brought him food. He had to borrow 2,500 euros from his neighbors to eat. It’s getting serious. “. Today this father has found an interim in security but the situation is very precarious.
Fixed-term contract and interim not renewed
A l’association RTSA relay for the work on the Rocade d’Avignon, Murielle Thevenoux saw the melting of fixed-term contracts and temporary contracts. Its socio-professional integration mission has become social assistance with meetings to facilitate administrative procedures: “The contracts were not renewed during and after confinement. People in precarious situations found themselves overnight in a more than precarious situation. It was an explosion of requests for action “.
Not everyone will receive the RSA
3,000 additional beneficiaries receive the RSA in Vaucluse. The department of Vaucluse voted 110 million euros to finance the RSA but not everyone will be entitled to it, worries Fathia El Majdouli, integration advisor: “it is necessary have worked two years in the last five years. If the person in seasonal work has not succeeded in accumulating two full years, he cannot claim RSA. Who will she turn to to supplement this lack of money and food? “
For Samira Hamoussa, the president of the RTSA association, the health crisis has changed the fight: “when we say fight against poverty, it has become the struggle for survival from now on”.
Falling into the RSA is losing your pride
Samira Hamoussa, president of the relay for work, is now stepping up interventions to negotiate a staggering of rents or electricity bills. “Now people can no longer feed themselves. They have nothing left at all”. She verified that it is “the consequence of the closure of all these employers in the hotel or restaurant industry. These jobs as housekeepers or catering employees, it was their pride to work, to renew their rights and not to fall into the RSA. For them, RSA, if we fall into it, it’s because we’re at the end of our rope after the Covid-19 crisis “.
110 million euros for RSA in Vaucluse
The department of Vaucluse has voted 110 million euros to finance the RSA 2020. The RSA is 565 euros per month, for a single person without children. The RSA barely exceeds 1,150 euros for a couple with two children. But not all job seekers in the health crisis will be able to benefit from it because you have to have worked enough in previous years to perceive it.
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