From access to social housing to the number of people on the streets, the 30th report of the Foundation for Housing the Disadvantaged (formerly the Abbé-Pierre Foundation) paints an alarming picture.
Increasingly difficult access to social housing, record evictions, more and more people on the streets, blatant discrimination against people with disabilities…
“France is sinking into a crisis of poor housing”, warns the Foundation for Housing the Disadvantaged (formerly the Abbé-Pierre Foundation) in its 30th annual report, released Monday evening, with often dramatic consequences.
At the end of a year of political instability, “the emergency is getting worse”, with “4 million people” poorly housed (without personal housing or living in conditions precarious) in 2024, while 12 million are “weakened by the housing crisis”.
Now, warns the association, “all the signals are red”
Homeless: sad records
This is one of the most alarming estimates made public by the foundation. At least 350,000 men, women and children are homeless in France. A figure that continues to increase each year: there were 330,000 in 2023 (+6%).
Their number has even more than doubled since 2012 (+145%). However, it is probably still below the reality. “Due to a lack of accommodation, many people are turning to squats, which are difficult to count, observes the collective, or to accommodation with others”, a phenomenon that is growing rapidly, with 590,000 people taking refuge with relatives.
Evictions from squats and shanty towns have never been so numerous at the same time (more than 100,000 in 2024), while 5,000 to 8,000 people, including 1,000 to 3,000 children, are turned away every evening by 115, due to lack of emergency accommodation.
In this context, at least 735 people died on the streets or homeless in 2023, a sad record in twelve years. With an average age of death of 48.8 years, compared to 79.9 years in the general population.
Even if the census methods have been improved, here too, “the real number of deaths of people without shelter or personal accommodation could be six times higher”.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000More difficult access to social housing
The foundation also highlights in its report the unprecedented number of applicants for social housing (2.7 million, by mid-2024), while, “at the same time, the number of social housing units available for rent is following an inverse slope”, with, in 2023, “393,000 allocations”.
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That is “nearly 100,000 fewer than in 2016”. Result: “Less than one in five applicants now receives a positive response within the year and the wait times for obtaining social housing can be several years”, denounces the foundation, while impoverishment is gaining ground, deepening energy insecurity (30% of households were cold at home last year).
The milestone of one million interventions for unpaid bills was even passed “for the first time” in 2023, almost “twice as many as in 2020”.
Disability: many discriminations
Getting social housing is even an obstacle course for people with disabilities (14% less chance). Only 18% of social housing is, in fact, accessible.
Twenty years after the major law on disability, this public is also the victim of significant discrimination in the private rental market, according to the association, with applications often rejected by owners, who fear being forced to carry out development work. One of the many facets of the invisibility of poor housing.
A sector “neglected” by public policies denounces the foundation
While the poor housing crisis is worsening in France, barely 259,000 homes have been started in 2024, compared to 435,000 in 2017. "In 2024, we saw a hardening of the construction crisis, a seizure of the real estate market, many warnings on the front of poor housing and yet, from the point of view of public policies, the year was marked by a wait-and-see attitude and renunciation," denounces Christophe Robert, general delegate of the foundation. With seven months "without a Housing Minister able to make important decisions", the year will have been "almost blank", asserts the report, which considers the sector "neglected" and highlights the cuts made to the renovation budget. The foundation calls for “change course”, with a revival of the construction of social housing and a generalization of rent control.