Homeless: A thousand children sleep in street, according to hosting assistance associations

Collectives for the fight against homelessness and UNICEF denounce “an unworthy situation”, on the occasion of a rally in front of a busy school in Lyon.

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Wake up the presidential campaign. Give the essentials in the debate. Several associations engaged in solidarity organized a rally, Thursday, February 10 in Lyon, to denounce the situation of homeless children, with the hope of sensitizing policy makers. On this occasion, the Foundation Abbé Pierre and the Federation of Solidarity Actors, estimated more than a thousand the number of children spending the night in the street, in 2022 in France. Homeless children are for many single-parent families, often migrant, excluded from housing or emergency hosting devices. “We can not resign ourselves. The policies tell us that housing is a very technical question. We tell them that it is time to wake up”, calls Manuel Domergue, spokesman for the Foundation Abbé Pierre.

“The level of emergency hosting is unpublished, with 200,000 places currently available, it is very good. But we recorded on 31 January 3,350 people who wiped a refusal after a call to 115 , and among them half of families, which precisely represents 890 children without roof. With other indicators, we exceed the thousand children concerned. We also have 6,000 minors in slums. We always have a problem with the Poverty in France “, points out Alexis Goursolas, spokesperson for the Federation of Solidarity Actors, bringing together 39 collective controls against homelessness.

For Beatrice Lefrançois, UNICEF France Secretary General, present at the Gathering Lyonnais: “It is unworthy of France, a seventh world power and signatory of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. A thousand children without Housing is an infringement of the fundamental rights of the child. Homeless, they do not have access to education, health, simply with dignity. “

Associations call for simpler access to social housing to shelter children, recovery of affordable housing constructions, and maintenance of emergency places, as well as a better support of children, for example by avoiding investments at the hotel or distant school assignments.

The school, “a place of protection”

Symbolically, the associations chose to launch their call to the Gilbert-Dru primary school, in the e district of Lyon. This school had been occupied five weeks in autumn by parents of students, to house several children without roof. Two children and their parents were housed in the same way, February 7th. This is the one hundred andient occupancy of school, which has allowed 450 children to shelter in the Lyon region, since 2014.

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/Media reports.