A survey by the Paris Region Institute (IPR), relayed by AFP on Thursday, shows that the proportion of Ile-de-France residents occupying housing that is too small has increased over the past ten years. 2.7 million people, or nearly a quarter of the territory’s population, would live in cramped conditions.
According to this survey, the rate of overcrowding of housing (defined when at least one room is missing compared to a standard established by INSEE*) recorded an increase of 0.6% between 2008 and 2018 in the region, while that it remained stable in the rest of the metropolitan territory.
It is mainly single-parent families who suffer from the lack of space, as well as “cohabitations of people without direct family ties” and young people.
A phenomenon affecting aging housing stock
Paris and the inner suburbs concentrate two-thirds of overcrowded housing, but the phenomenon tends to spread beyond these areas. It mainly affects municipalities with a high proportion of old or degraded housing, “ financially more affordable “, notes the IPR (11 Parisian districts, but also 22 municipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis).
Overcrowded housing, in 8 out of 10 cases of rentals, has especially increased in the social rental stock (+2%) “ due to the absence of a financially accessible rental or purchase offer in the private sector, forcing some young people residing with their parents or separated couples to continue cohabitations suffered », explains the Institute.
* For a dwelling not to be too small for its occupants, it must consist of at least one living room, one room for each couple, one room for each other adult aged 19 or over, one room for two children if they are of the same sex or are under 7 years old, and one piece per child otherwise.