The Cent pour Un association held its general meeting on June 26. The opportunity for its president Denis Dousset to launch an appeal for volunteers and donors.
The reason for being of One hundred for one is clearly displayed on the association’s website: “Cent pour Un du Cher is an association born from the refusal to tolerate without doing anything that families, French or foreign, with young children, are homeless and sleep in the street.”
The association has three accommodations – one in Vierzon and two in Bourges – which it rents to house homeless families, covering the rent and charges.
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With 230 members and 152 donors, the Berruyère association “needs to find more funding”, confides Denis Dousset, its president since September 2023.
“We want to increase our housing stock by activating the fiscal financial lever on housing that owners entrust to us and thus enable us to accommodate more families.”
Contributors agree to pay 5 euros
per month for two years, just like those accommodated.
empty (empty)
The association does not receive subsidies. “We have great support from Emmaüs which gives us the equivalent of the rental charges for our three current accommodations.” It works “in solidarity” with local associations welcoming and supporting migrants and can count on a strong national network of seventy Cent pour un associations. “Because we are not omnipotent,” underlines President Berruyer.
The three homes are occupied by three families. “A family, who have been in Vierzon for five years, is going to leave, and that’s a satisfaction for us. The head of the family signed a permanent contract in Loiret,” says Denis Dousset. “He has personally invested in finding a job. He was a companion of Emmaüs and obtained a Caces
.
Gardening and learning French, to integrate
The administrative files of the two other families accommodated “are being studied and are progressing well. We are waiting to be able to install them in training courses and they have started to learn French.”
Learning French is an important element of integration. But also gardening, like with this family who has a plot of land in the marshes. “If we want to be integrative, we have to help them understand how our society works. We are not here to make the landscape pretty!”
Hence Denis Dousset’s call for volunteers “to sponsor families. It is also important for the association to make itself better known. After an Art solidarity exhibition at the Galerie du Phare, in Bourges, over the last three years, the association is considering other actions such as events around shows in spring and autumn.
Celine Chouard
Certificate of aptitude for safe driving.
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