The Metropolitan Night of Solidarity on 22nd January 2026

The Night of Solidarity is an operation that counts homeless people. It has been organised by the City of Paris each year since 2018 and was extended to cover the metropolitan area in 2022, under the coordination of Grand Paris Metropolis. Its aim is to gain greater knowledge about the number of homeless people and to raise awareness among key players and the general public of the issues associated with this large-scale, severe exclusion. The study presents the results of the counting procedure carried out in the 34 Grand Paris Metropolis municipalities, which include Paris and the La Defense sector. It is completed by a study focusing on the results within Paris.

Although the majority of people encountered were alone in the Metropolitan municipalities that volunteered to participate (52.5%), it became apparent that the proportion of people in groups and encampments had grown in 2026. Almost a quarter of those counted (23.5%) were met in groups of 20 or more people, compared with 13% in 2025. Most of the people counted were met in the streets (58%). The other most often frequented locations were the entrances, slip roads and embankments of motorways and the Peripherique ring road (9%), SNCF railway stations and RATP metro and RER stations (8%) and the quays, and banks of canals and rivers (6%). Nearly half the people encountered had no shelter (45%). A little over a quarter were sleeping in tents (26%), while 17.5% were living in makeshift shelters.

Women accounted for 12% of those met. People aged from 25 to 54 made up three-quarters of the people encountered. Half the people questioned said they were experiencing homelessness for the first time (50%) and two thirds (65%) responded saying they had been homeless for more than a year. Nearly half (44%) said they had lived abroad before coming to Paris.

The priority of needs had changed little compared with previous years, although growing needs linked to having somewhere to be listened to and to discuss things was observed in 2026.  As in previous years, the most pressing needs, involved access to places to learn French and to find work: only 20% and 23% of respondents indicated having access to these when they had needed them. Access to storage space also remained limited, with only three people out of ten questioned (31%) stating that they had access to it when needed. Six out of ten respondents indicated that they had not had any social support (60%) and more than half declared that they had no address or registered residence for receiving post or did not know if they had one (55%). The findings concerning use of the 115 emergency helpline also confirmed those of previous surveys: more that seven out of ten homeless people did not call the number (72%), either because they'd never contacted them or because they'd given up trying.

The results and the trends observed highlight how important it is to monitor the number, profiles, geographical distribution and needs of homeless people, each and every year and underline how indispensable it is that the Night of Solidarity operation be reinitiated every winter. A new edition is planned for the beginning of 2027.