At the end of August 2023, Unicef France and the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS) pointed out a serious problem: at least 1,990 children were without an accommodation solution. In a barometer of children on the street, the two associations establish that, compared to the start of the 2022 school year, 20% more children are without accommodation and 2.5 times more than 18 months ago. Unicef and the FAS have identified 3,735 people in their families who had requested 115 on the night of August 21 to 22 and who could not be accommodated due to a lack of available places in the accommodation structures that could accommodate them. Among these people, 1,990 were under 18 years old (like his Albanian children in Rennes who testified at the end of 2022), including 480 under 3 years old. 80% of children without accommodation declared having already slept on the street the day before their request for accommodation. If Île-de-France is the region most affected by these unfilled requests (a few years ago, a high school mobilized to help 7 homeless students), in the region, the situation is also tense, particularly in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, in Hauts-de-France and in Occitanie.
Nearly 700 children on the street in France
But several weeks later, Unicef France and the Abbé Pierre Foundation drew up a damning observation: “Today 2,822 children [dorment] in the street or any other places depriving them of dignified and safe living conditions”, can we read in a Tribune published on October 17, 2023, supported by other associations and around fifty parliamentarians and metropolitan mayors. According to their data, the number of homeless children jumped by 42% in just one month, including 686 children under 3 years old. These very worrying figures come against a backdrop of inflation and the housing crisis, which weigh even more heavily on the poorest households. “Children penalized in their development, their health, their education, and confronted from an early age with inequalities and extreme poverty”also alert the signatories of the forum, relayed by the HuffPost.
The associations will take legal action
Speaker on FranceInfoPascal Brice, president of the FAS, returned to this “stark observation of collective failure”regretting that “emergency accommodation, housing and migration policies” in place in France “fail to resolve this issue, despite significant resources” allocated. How can we explain the increase in the number of schoolchildren without accommodation? “A breakdown in social housing”“a migration policy such that families do not have access to work”, analyzes Pascal Brice. To take action, the associations decided to“to sue” the prefects that they accuse “to establish selection criteria” to obtain emergency accommodation due to lack of space. They also urge the government to give itself the means to honor its commitment to “no longer have any children on the street”taken by the former Minister of Housing in October 2022, Olivier Klein.