In a context where needs are growing, this study explores new approaches to emergency accommodation: mixed populations and uses, temporary and modular centres, places that interact with the city, solidarity provisions.
At the end of January 2020, 3601 homeless people were counted during the third Night of Solidarity in Paris. On the scale of Grand Paris, the number of people living in the street was estimated to be somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000. Faced with a growing need for more emergency accommodation places and a population that is becoming more diverse, new approaches are being developed that offer qualitatively different solutions.
Carried out in collaboration with the key players of these projects, which include Aurore and Emmaüs Solidarité, the study describes some of these initiatives in Grand Paris:
- Nine sites include emergency accommodation provisions, which are new and hybrid in their approach, such as Five roofs - Cinq Toits -, the temporary occupation of a former police station, the Jourdan Centre and the Maison des Réfugiés, a social project in a former car-park, and the Séraphine de Senlis Centre which shares a premises with an Ehpad (care home for senior citizens) and a childcare day centre.
- Citizen and solidarity initiatives, through the winning projects of the Paris participative budget “Shelters for Homeless people”, as well as different forms of accommodation proposed by individuals.
What can be learnt from these experiences? How do they contribute to developing solutions? What are the conditions for success?
The final part of the study presents the lessons to be learnt and the issues linked to these projects that was given concerted attention by the various key players involved in emergency accommodation during a workshop on 14th January 2021. The lines of action identified: - raising the awareness of key players, impact assessment, thoughts on the economic model and regulatory framework, articulation with the “Housing first - Logement d’abord” logic - are all milestones to be considered in order to achieve more far-reaching innovative and solidarity projects on a wider scale in the future, that are both temporary and durable.
