French government and charities race to provide services in difficult circumstances
On an ordinary day, some 3,500 people live outside on the streets of Paris, their tents and makeshift beds largely ignored by throngs of passers-by in the City of Light. To get by, they rely on a patchwork of services from charities and government, as well as begging for spare change or food.
But these are not ordinary days. With France in its fourth week of coronavirus shutdown, the plight of homeless people in Paris has become acute with access to soup kitchens, public toilets and showers, and daytime shelters severely curtailed.
With streets quiet, there are fewer opportunities to ask for help or money, and shelters that could provide refuge bring with them the risk of infection. Police have ticketed or hassled street people who are breaking quarantine rules, despite them obviously having no place to go. “It’s more difficult for me now . . . everyone is afraid to give,” said Rahim, a 49 year-old who came to France from Morocco nine years ago and who begs for money in the north of the city. “I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”
In a city that has long had a more permissive attitude to its homeless population than other world capitals, the coronavirus is stressing the informal system of charities and resources that people rely on to survive. Some warn of an impending disaster despite the government announcing measures to help, including €65m for emergency housing of 10,000 beds, suspending evictions until May, and opening 73 new shelters for the sick.
As of April 4, the government says it has lodged 172,000 homeless people and secured 7,800 hotel rooms that could be made available to those in need.
“We have to do more in the coming days to avoid a human catastrophe . . . people will die,” said Christophe Robert, the head of the Abbé Pierre foundation, a homeless charity.
In the north of Paris last month, Ma Sarr handed out plastic-wrapped sandwiches, tea and coffee to the scores of homeless people queueing up between metal crowd-control barriers set up by her organisation Solidarité et Partage Jouy Le Moutier.
Speaking through a protective mask, the longtime volunteer said she knows many of the homeless on the route she drives twice weekly in her van packed with supplies. She was determined to show up for them now: “They are really afraid but . . . they are used to us being here, they wait for us.”
President Emmanuel Macron last month visited a former hotel in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, which the government has requisitioned to house roughly 450 homeless people. However, progress on new beds has been slow, according to charities, with only 2,000 opened so far and only six centres for sick people have opened.
Source: Finnacialtimes
