In Montreuil, the city denounces the insufficient housing in Île-de-France. To make up for this lack, she announced that she would make a gymnasium available on Wednesday evening for women living alone.
The city of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), denouncing the great lack of housing in Île-de-France, announced, this Tuesday, December 17, the provision from Wednesday evening of a gymnasium for women “living alone , on the street, broken and deprived of accommodation. This municipal gymnasium will be accessible only via an orientation by the emergency number 115, for a month and a half, until February.
“Strengthen emergency accommodation capacities”
Homeless women will be welcomed there at night, from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. Already during the winter of 2023-2024, 33 women (including some pregnant) were cared for in this way by the town of 111,000 inhabitants, located around ten kilometers east of Paris.
“The housing sector is caught in the grip of disinvestment from public policies and the financialization of the sector,” wrote in a press release the mayor (PCF) of Montreuil, Patrice Bessac, who chairs the territorial public establishment Est Ensemble.
“The State must further strengthen emergency accommodation capacities, help supportive communities, associations and landlords but also sanction communities which refuse national solidarity”, affirms this communist councilor, deploring that “too many cities refuse yet to build housing.”
A hygiene kit
This temporary night reception aims to supplement existing emergency accommodation places. Each woman will be able to benefit from access to the toilets, a hygiene and shower kit, a bed equipped with “very cold” blankets and duvets, a dinner and a breakfast.
Individual situations will be taken into account by social workers present all night, according to the town hall, while during the day, women will be collected in the day centers of Emmaüs Alternatives and Cité Caritas and referred for medical consultations in municipal health centers.
Doctors will also come to the gymnasium for specialist consultations and vaccinations. According to the city, this is “to prevent people in care from returning to the streets at the end of the winter period”.
