Sheltering of the homeless in Place des Vosges by the Paris City Hall

Thursday July 29, the occupation of the Place des Vosges by the Collectif # Réquisition began in the early afternoon.

The # Réquisition collective brings together several associations:

• Right to housing
• Children from Afghanistan and elsewhere
• Utopia 56
• The Chadian and Sudanese Collective in France
• Paris of exile
• Wilson Migrant Solidarity
• Coordination 75 of undocumented migrants.

The collective has chosen this time the Place des Vosges, a tourist spot. It was about showing another side of Paris and making visible the invisible in a chic district.

Nearly 600 homeless people (counted Thursday evening by the town hall), alone or with their families, have deployed nearly 300 tents on the lawns of the Place des Vosges square. There were 3 distribution areas, one for families, one for single men, and one for unaccompanied minors. The majority were migrants but there were also people with a residence permit but no accommodation solution, asylum seekers and « new arrivals ».

All these people, accompanied by associations, asked for immediate accommodation until everyone was relocated and the requisition law applied! 1toit = ​​1right! Indeed, the 1945 ordinance evoking the 1945 ordinance allows the State to install poorly housed or homeless people in housing that has been empty for more than six months, for a maximum period of one year. renewable

Previous occupations

This operation, called « street installation », was the 7th of its kind since December 2020, the date of the creation of the collective. Previously, the collective occupied a disused nursery school on rue Erlanger (75016) in January, the Hôtel-Dieu (75004) in February, the Japy gymnasium (75011) in May, the forecourt of the Hotel de Ville (75004 ) in June as well as the Place de la République, on several occasions. The occupation of mid-November saw a violent intervention of the police during the evacuation.

After these occupations, 3,000 people found a home.

For Utopia 56, this is the only way to make the homeless in Ile-de-France visible. In this region, accommodation is saturated and only asylum seekers are taken care of. Still according to Utopia 56, there are 400,000 empty housing units in Ile de France, housing institutions (banks, insurance companies, hospitals, etc.). « Mobilizing them would cost less than housing people in hotels. However, policies do not solve the problem. The association asks the State « for dignified and lasting accommodation solutions, instead of an orientation towards a stabilization solution or rehousing », as provided by law.

Shelter intervention

Faced with this emergency situation, the City of Paris decided on an operation of « sheltering. For this, it chose 3 places: 2 gymnasiums and the Paris Event Center (exhibition hall of La Villette), transformed At the end of the morning, the association « France Terre Asile » established a social diagnosis with the families and children, present at Place des Vosges in Paris.

The municipal services distributed breakfasts before the start of the evacuation. Small groups of 10 (women, children and single men) then board the chartered buses. They go to emergency accommodation centers first, then to hotels.

The prefect of Paris, Magalie Charbonnay, announced Place des Vosges, that 200 people would be left on the streets and dispersed by the police. According to her, these people « were lying and had shelter ». She added that the prefecture would be held responsible for any violence.

However, according to Utopia 56, many police officers evicted nearly 200 people from the square, mostly single men. Separated into several groups, the police accompanied them to the nearby metro station (Chemin vert). They forbade them to leave, and encouraged them to leave the premises without offering any rehousing solutions.

Following these events, Ian Brossat, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of housing, emergency accommodation and refugee protection, spoke on Twitter.

« While the City takes its responsibilities and goes beyond its powers, by mobilizing 3 gymnasiums for accommodation, the State leaves 200 people without a solution and sends the police to disperse them. What is the State waiting for to mobilize its buildings? empty? « 

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VERONIQUE YANG

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