The figures do not lie, in France as in Finistère where the state of poverty is evolving in a worrying manner. Among the 8,000 people welcomed by Secours catholique in Finistère in 2023, we found 54.7% women but also 80.9% households made up of a single adult with or without children. Young people are the majority, but the aging of beneficiaries has also been evident in recent years. Likewise, the worsening of living conditions is worrying, with 96% of households below the poverty threshold (1,216 euros for a single person according to INSEE figures) and 74% of them below the threshold. of extreme poverty (811 euros per month according to INSEE figures).
“The real difficulty in Finistère is the non-recourse to the RSA”
“Poverty has many faces,” says Evelyne André, president of the Finistère delegation, who explains that after the theme of isolated women in 2023, it is that of social benefits which is the subject of an analysis in the 2024 annual report of Secours catholique. The dematerialization of documents and the distance from humans in administrative structures mean that, according to François Soulard, departmental director of Secours catholique, “requests for social benefits are an obstacle course”. He also notes that “the real difficulty in Finistère is the non-recourse to the RSA” with 43.4% of eligible Finistère households not receiving the RSA compared to 36.1% at the national level.
Secours catholique and its 850 volunteers in Finistère are therefore always keen to “put people at the heart of solidarity”, as Evelyne André states, by working in collaboration with the department's stakeholders, such as social workers or town halls, against the problems of dematerialization and confinement of people through help desks, activity groups and places of conviviality.
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