The government is launching a second five-year plan for “Housing first” with an envelope doubled to 500 million euros, in order to directly grant permanent housing to people who are poorly housed, announced Monday the Minister Delegate for the City and the housing Olivier Klein.
In an interview on Monday with the daily La Croix, Olivier Klein announced that this second plan will amount to “half a billion” euros, double the 250 million spent between 2017 and 2022. “Our objective is to finance, in addition to what has already been done, 100,000 very social housing units in five years, 10,000 places in family boarding houses and 30,000 in rental intermediation”, he declared, aiming to get “more than 800,000 people out of the street in ten years.
The previous plan has already enabled “440,000 people to leave the street to access housing”, i.e. a rate “multiplied by three compared to the previous period”, according to Olivier Klein, for whom it is a ” little revolution. “Until now, people went from the street to emergency accommodation, then from emergency accommodation to an integration solution, but sometimes also returned to the street,” he argued.
The “Housing First” plan aims to promote the direct transition from the street to sustainable housing. Since 2017, 42,000 places have been created in rental intermediation, allowing a person to be housed in the private sector thanks to an association that takes the lease, said the minister. Some 7,200 places have also been created in boarding houses and 122,000 homeless people have had accommodation in the very social park.
In a report published in January 2021, the Court of Auditors estimated that if the first results of the plan “show a favorable dynamic, with an increase in access to housing”, they remain overall “below expectations and quantified objectives”. “The goal remains to end homelessness, especially for families. But if many people leave the street (…), others arrive there (in the street, editor’s note) in particular because of the economic situation and the migratory flows ”, replied Olivier Klein. Regarding emergency accommodation, “every evening we have 203,000 places open, against 120,000 in 2017. This is a level never reached, even stronger than after the Covid”, he said.
Olivier Klein will detail his plan on Tuesday morning in front of the solidarity actors. During her speech presenting the results of the housing component of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR), Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had already announced an extension of 160 million euros for the system.