The number of households waiting for social housing reached 2.42 million at the end of 2022, a level that has never been so high, according to a press release from the Social Union for Housing (USH) published on Friday.
This represents an increase of 7% compared to 2021, details the USH, which represents public and private social landlords. This figure includes both households awaiting a first allocation and those already housed in the HLM park and awaiting a transfer, numbering 797,000, said a spokeswoman for the USH.
The demand present in all territories is particularly marked in Ile-de-France, on the Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean coast, French Geneva and the Lille metropolitan area, details the organization in a press release.
The figure does not take into account households eligible for social housing but who give up given the long and too often prohibitive waiting times experienced by certain territories, adds the USH.
After months of government denial, the housing crisis is now well established, and the continued increase in the number of households waiting for social housing is the most glaring illustration of this, lament the social landlords.
It is urgent to do the reverse of what has been done
While the production of new housing plummets, victim of rising construction costs and restrictions on access to credit, housing stakeholders increasingly openly accuse the executive of doing too little on this front. The weakening of the financial resources of HLM organizations, the reduction of APL (personalized housing assistance, editor’s note), the increase in the VAT rate on new production and the lack of political support for the subject of housing by the executive, since 2017, have had the immediate consequence of a drop in the production of social housing, castigates the president of the ‘USH, Emmanuelle Cosse.
It is urgent to do the opposite of what has been done: strengthen aid for stone, put an end to the annual drains on social landlords, mobilize public land to build more social housing, she adds.
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