2829 people with no accommodation solution were met during the night of Solidarity from 25th to 26th March 2021 in Paris, a decrease of 21% compared with the previous year.
The Night of Solidarity is an anonymous and objective count of people living on the street carried out each year since 2018 by the City of Paris with numerous institutional, associative and voluntary partners. The 2021 Night of Solidarity took place in a singular context of curfew. One of the objectives of this particular night was to obtain initial measurements of the effects of the health crisis on the situation of homeless people in Paris.
The count of this fourth Night of Solidarity was established at 2,829 people with no accommodation solution for the night of 25-26 March 2021 in Paris, a number that is 21% lower than the year before. This decrease can be explained mainly by people being sheltered in camps in the north-east of Paris and a context marked by a strong increase in the number of accommodation and shelter options compared to previous years.
The geography of people sleeping rough in Paris has not changed greatly compared to previous years, except by the sharp decrease in the 19th district and some local changes. The night of 2021 shows a form of stability in the qualitative elements gathered on the profiles of people met that night: 13% are women (compared with 14% in 2020), the average age is around 41 as in 2020, almost one out of every two people thinks they will spend the night on the street as in 2020, 61% have had no personal accommodation for over a year as in 2020, two-thirds have no financial income or live off begging as in 2020.
The responses concerning their use of aid and support services also remains relatively stable, with some variations: 69% of respondents do not call or no longer call 115 in 2021 compared with 62% in 2020, 44% have no address for receiving mail, compared with 41% in 2020. These changes imply that the people encountered are further away from support services compared with previous years.
Several questions were asked in order to measure the initial effects of the Covid-19 health and social crisis. A majority of respondents declared not to be concerned or not to have seen any concrete effects of the crisis on their lives and access to aid and services. For others, it appears that the effects on daily life during the period of lockdown and curfew are more often mentioned than the social effect on the pathways and situations. However, some people expressed the effect in terms of anxiety, stress and a feeling of isolation, as well as the effects in terms of reduced financial resources and the impact on their professional activity.
