Did you know ? There is a squat in the middle of the Purpan hospital and it has existed legally for 6 years! It is the Lascrosses collective that accompanies the homeless, sheltered in the requisitioned Armengault building. 80 people have been accommodated there, there are about 30 left, including 15 children.we gradually found solutions for the others” explains Mylène, a volunteer from the collective who accompanies these families.
“These are people from Eastern Europe or the Maghreb (Egypt, Bulgaria, Albania or Morocco), some are working, others are in a regular situation” she confides to us. But the administrative court ordered their expulsion last fall before April 15. Supported by the Sud Santé unions, CGT CHU and the Right to Housing association, the Lascrosses collective would like solutions and more time to relocate.He appealed to the town hall of Toulouse and to the management of the health establishment; “we ask the competent services to take their responsibilities, the right to housing is an unconditional right” et “a lot of people here have made HLM requests for several years, they could claim it, but given the lack of places they are still here” sorry Mylene.
A classroom in the squat
According to the unions, the CHU wants to raze the Armengault building, without having recorded a specific project at this stage. They just know of a desire to expand the nearby teen clinic. In this place, a whole social organization was set up. There is even a classroom, “it’s a room that we have taken over and every Saturday here at 11 a.m., we learn French, for the children of the squat the common language is French, here it’s the building class” explains Sandrine, specialized educator of the collective, she accompanies families in school registrations “they all go to school” et “play together in French”. For the collective, expelling these families, some of whom have been living together since 2014, would make the school monitoring of children more complicated.
The town hall of Toulouse responds
Contacted, the Town Hall of Toulouse / Toulouse Métropole ensures that it has “always proactive in terms of accommodation and inclusion of European nationals or beneficiaries of international protection” et “on the case of the Pavillon Armengaud squat, the community does not know who the occupants are and what their rights are at this stage.“The community that”on the subject of access to social housing” specifies that “requests will be processed” while recalling that “the rules for access to housing are well regulated. The inter-municipal housing commission sets rules and objectives for rehousing by lessor and that you must have income and valid papers or residence permits to benefit from social housing.
The CHU, to whom the collective is asking for a delay, did not respond to our requests.
