9:00 p.m., December 4, 2021
Irony of the calendar: the season which sees the festive light garlands and Christmas windows appear in the city is also the one when we begin to care more about people in the street… Each year, during this period, the Paris town hall (of which it is not the competence) sets up its “winter emergency plan”, which unveils the JDD. This consists of opening accommodation places complementary to those offered by the State (which is the competence). But this year is special: for the first time, the State will not launch its traditional “winter plan”. Because the Minister of Housing, Emmanuelle Wargon, announced last spring “the end of management with the thermometer”.
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Last winter, we created 40,000 additional places in France, including 20,900 in the Paris region. A record!
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“Return the homeless to the streets when the temperatures rise? An aberration to which we have put an end”, tweeted the minister in September, committing to establish a “multi-year programming” of accommodation. In his entourage, we defend this change of strategy: “Last winter, we created 40,000 additional places in France, including 20,900 in the Paris region. A record! All have been perpetuated. In total, the number of places is rising. today at 200,000 in the country, 94,000 in Ile-de-France, 38,000 in Paris, 17,000 in Seine-Saint-Denis. A figure never reached, recognized by associations. We approach winter more serenely, with a park much more hosting than in previous years. “
A former Go Sport in the 16th district
At the town hall of Paris, we approve the idea. “Homeless people need to be housed all year round, not just in winter,” agrees Léa Filoche, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the fight against inequalities and exclusion. But the elected Génération.s immediately adds: “The problem is that we still have nearly 3,000 people homeless in Paris. We have therefore chosen to maintain our emergency plan.” The City opened a gymnasium in the 10th arrondissement on Wednesday to accommodate 70 people, families whose children attend school in Paris. Thursday evening, she made another available to 90 homeless people in the 11th district, pending the opening in a week of a former Go Sport store at Porte de Saint-Cloud, in the 16th district, until the end of April.
“A large platform is set up there,” says the assistant, “with toilets, showers, meal distributions, support from social workers and caregivers to try to get them back on track.” Léa Filoche admits however that “it is a drop of water”. Last March, the fourth Night of Solidarity recorded 2,829 homeless people in the capital, according to the report published in November by the Paris Urban Planning Workshop (Apur). In January 2020, they were 3,601. A figure down by 21% thanks to the “choice of the State to increase the number of places and to maintain them throughout the year 2021”, recognizes the elected of the 19th.
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We must open the tens of thousands of unoccupied square meters that the State has in Paris, like the Val-de-Grâce or the Hôtel-Dieu, not to mention the empty hotels because of the Covid
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Despite this – little – better, the cabinet of Emmanuelle Wargon concedes that “there are still people on the street”: “The State will continue its efforts in certain territories, on a case-by-case basis.” New accommodation openings are also being studied in Seine-Saint-Denis. And the extreme cold plan can be triggered at any time by the prefect if the temperature drops below 0 degrees for more than twenty-four hours; gymnasiums and other heated places were then requisitioned. A National Solidarity Night should also be organized on January 20 in municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, at the same time as the fifth Parisian edition.
Breakfasts at Beaubourg
In the meantime, Léa Filoche asks the government to “open up the tens of thousands of unoccupied square meters that the State has in Paris, like the Val-de-Grâce or the Hôtel-Dieu, not to mention the empty hotels because of the Covid “. It claims to have offered the provision of town hall rooms, schools or nurseries under construction. Finally, it announces the restart of emergency food aid as part of the winter plan, from December 6 to the end of March, in partnership with associations such as La Chorba, the Salvation Army, Un mafé pour tous, Refugee Food or Emmaus.
At the administrative restaurant of the Hôtel de Ville, avenue Victoria, 200 people will be welcomed seven evenings a week. Breakfasts and lunch boxes will also be offered in four cultural venues – the Gaîté Lyrique, the Center Pompidou, the Forum des images and the House of Amateur Artistic Practices – six days a week; each site will receive around 100 homeless people. Finally, in the former town hall of the 4th arrondissement (now Académie du climat), breakfasts will be offered to about sixty people five days a week. The opportunity also to bring a little human warmth to the most disadvantaged .
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