Nermine, 11 years old, “try to be strong”But he cannot suppress a sob at the thought of returning to the streets. He had already lived there with his family for a week during the heatwave of the summer of 2023, sleeping on the floor of the Perrache station in Lyon, when, upon his arrival from Algeria, the friends who were supposed to stay at the house deserted. The five of them will be homeless again on Thursday 5 September: their apartment, which they thought they were renting from its owner, turned out to be an occupied social housing unit and their eviction is planned.
The preteen trusts her ” stress “ facing the police, as well as his concern for his mother, who suffers from a chronic illness, and his younger sisters, aged 7 and 3. “Where are we going to go?” It’s going to rain, it’s going to be cold, how are we going to sleep outside?he asks in almost perfect French, which he had not spoken for a year. “I would like my daughter to think about her studies, not about her mother”Zouleykha said sadly (like the other people mentioned, she asked to remain anonymous). No accommodation solution, even temporary, could be found, despite daily calls to 115 and the efforts of the social worker who accompanies them.
More than 2,000 children – 2,043 of whom were under 3 years old – remained homeless on the evening of 19 August, after their families had managed to contact 115 of them, according to the report “Children on the street”, published by the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS) and Unicef France, Thursday 29 August.
These two organisations have been carrying out censuses since 2020. Never before has the number of children on the streets been so high on the eve of the start of the school year. “The increase reaches 120% in four yearsalarms Nathalie Latour, director general of the FAS. And these figures are lower than reality, as many people do not call or no longer call 115, discouraged by waiting times and negative responses. During the Night of Solidarity in Paris, from 25 to 26 January, 69% of homeless people gathered (individually or as a family) said they had not tried to contact this number.
“I told him I lost my keys”
Lassana, 34, who has three children aged 8, 4 and 2 and whose wife is pregnant, has not given up. The long-time resident of Romainville (Seine-Saint-Denis) spends hours each day trying to reach a busy 115 number. And every night he receives the same negative response by SMS. “We fit in on the right and on the left. We are adults, we are fine, even if my wife is very tired from pregnancy. But the children… The little one, especially, we have to spend every day outside. He cannot take a nap.”
You have 57.49% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
