Build your house to get out of the street. In Séné, in the Gulf of Morbihan, homeless people use the grinder and the hammer, with the help of social educators, to build “tiny houses”, with the possibility of then living in one of these mini – green housing. Pascal, 52, will now live in a “tiny” that he himself has partly fitted out. “It’s perfect. I have lived in a caravan before. There, it’s better», he declares while unveiling his new «house» of around twenty m2, with shower, toilets, kitchen, mezzanine and fold-out table, where you can smell the scent of beech wood. “It’s a total change. Here we are more free (only in a building), we go outside right away“.
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At the origin of this initiative, a call for projects from the Interministerial Delegation for Accommodation and Access to Housing (Dihal) at the end of 2020. The objective is to offer “a form of housing for people who are very desocialized and very marginalized“, explains Simon Robitaille, who leads the “tiny” project at Amisep, a Breton association for the fight against precariousness. “The idea was to combine housing and an on-site activity. So we started with this original idea of self-building tiny houses“.
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Not far from the racecourse and facing a row of houses with neatly trimmed hedges, a handful of men are busy under the shed belonging to Amisep. From Monday to Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., they can come and work voluntarily on the construction of a tiny, with the objective of building eight in three years. The setting is deliberately flexible and welcoming, with lunch offered. “Some are there every day while others arrive all fired up and never come back. It is a device which must make it possible to accommodate people who do not find their place anywhererecalls Simon Robitaille.
A house at 25,000 euros
The tiny, already well advanced, should be habitable in early July, after four months of work, for a cost of around 25,000 euros. An invoice defying all competition in a popular region where “the land is in tension“, notes Frédéric Le Poul, director of the precariousness pole at Amisep. “It is both a construction but also a reconstruction for them“, he analyzes. So some, thrilled by these adorable little mobile homes, have found the desire to get up. “I had a difficult phase and an addiction… The tiny allowed me to get back into the bath physically and mentally», Analyzes Benoit, who even obtained an integration contract. Alister, face marked by the trials of life, feels at ease in this atmosphere. “I prefer to be here and participate in this project and it gives me schedules. During this time I am not doing anything stupid… Otherwise I would be in Vannes zoning out“, he admits.
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Admittedly, others did not want to get involved in the project, reluctant to work on a voluntary basis and without having the assurance of occupying the “tiny”. Because the choice of the lucky tenant, who will have to pay a modest financial contribution, will ultimately be made by the Integrated Reception and Orientation Service (SIAO) of Vannes. Sine qua non conditions: having participated in the worksite and not finding a “classic” accommodation solution. Benoit is already contemplating it with envy and will make a request to occupy it. “Because I like her, she has a bit of a wild cabin side, I hope that one of the eight will be for me!“, he slips, emphasizing that this type of habitat corresponded to the profile of people like him.
