TESTIMONY. “At 48, I finally got the social housing I asked for… at 19!”

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Across the Atlantic, poor housing is not a myth. Unaffordable rents and interminable waiting times before being allocated an HLM are a scourge denounced by this resident of Chicago.

In France, mocking the slowness of public service is a kind of national sport. Except that the United States obviously has nothing to envy us, as illustrated by the incredible story experienced by Jeanette Taylor. On May 31, this American from Chicago finally got the social housing she was hoping for. The problem is that this good news arrived… twenty-nine years after I asked for it! I applied for social housing in 1993. And I had no news until 2004, when I received a phone call telling me that my son, who had just finished high school, could not be on my lease and that I had to choose between him and the accommodation!”

“I kept my son, of course. Today, in 2022, I finally received a letter telling me that I was at the top of the waiting list. I sat on my bed for a hour, saying to me: “Say God, you have a hell of a sense of humor! “, says the one who is now 48 years old.

“Living in a decent place should be a basic right in the richest country in the world”

She was 19 when she sent her first letter to the equivalent of the HLM office of the 20e Chicago constituency to ask for decent housing. At that time, the young woman was in a precarious situation and took care of her three children alone… But nothing helped. Faced with the slowness of the procedure, the single mother ends up settling in what her meager means allow her to have access to: an apartment with a single bedroom, in which the whole family takes up residence. Fortunately, with the help of a relative who granted her a rent at a friendly rate, she managed, in 2000, to integrate a dwelling with four bedrooms.

“A part of me was ashamed to ask for help, even though I really needed it. But, in reality, it is the city that should be ashamed since it took them almost three decades to respond to my request. No one should have to wait that long. Living in a decent place should be a fundamental right in the richest country in the world!” exclaims the combative forties.

In Chicago, the deadline for allocating social housing still often exceeds “twenty-five years”

A courageous mother who, in 2015, was elected city councilor for her Chicago borough to fight on this subject. Because this interminable waiting period is unfortunately usual in the United States. In our French latitudes, it is also clear that it is generally necessary to be patient to obtain social housing, but much less than across the Atlantic. According to the dashboard of the National Social Housing Control Agency published in 2021, in 2019, it was necessary to wait on average one year to be allocated an HLM in France.

In Chicago, the delay in allocating social housing still often exceeds “twenty-five years”, according to statistics from the Chicago Housing Authority, the branch that oversees public housing in the city. Now comfortably installed, Jeanette fights so that no one waits nearly a third of a century before being decently housed.

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