City of Montreuil -[Communiqué] Montreuil renews its help to homeless women by opening a municipal gymnasium for a month and a half

Patrice Bessac, mayor of Montreuil and his municipal majority have decided that Montreuil will once again take its share of the effort in terms of getting people forced to live there off the street by voluntarily providing a municipal gymnasium designed to accommodate several dozen women living alone, on the street, broken up and deprived of accommodation.

This municipal gymnasium opens this Wednesday, December 18 in the evening and until February.

By opening this municipal facility, the municipal executive wishes, even modestly, to strengthen the reception and shelter capacities present in the city (11 social hotels, 300 emergency accommodation places per year, 243 in social reintegration accommodation centers, 110 in reception centers for asylum seekers).

“A roof over your head where you can find refuge, surrounded by your loved ones and warm, should more than ever constitute a fundamental right of human dignity. While needs are ever greater, the housing sector is caught in the grip of disinvestment from public policies and the financialization of the sector. Too many people are still forced to live on the streets, especially young children. The State must further strengthen emergency accommodation capacities, help supportive communities, associations and landlords but also sanction communities which refuse national solidarity. Acting is a duty of humanity” declares Patrice Bessac, mayor of Montreuil and president of Est Ensemble.

Montreuil has made clear choices to bring the values ​​of equality, dignity and solidarity to life through housing.. The City continues to build social housing (1,252 new social housing units between 2020 and 2023), imposing 40% social housing in all new construction, renovating the 16 migrant workers’ homes and social residences, fighting against substandard housing, experimenting the real solidarity lease, encouraging participatory housing and ensuring that a percentage of social housing is maintained at 37% despite the speculative pressure exerted on real estate and land in the inner suburbs of Paris.

Montreuil alone cannot respond to the cataclysm affecting housing in Île-de-France.
While 76% of Ile-de-France residents are eligible for social housing, there are 9,500 households in Montreuil who have applied for housing!

For Patrice Bessac, mayor of Montreuil, “Too many cities still refuse to build housing. If every mayor contributed to the national effort in favor of housing for all, there would be no more homeless people in our country. Only solidarity between Ile-de-France municipalities will make it possible to respond to the hundreds of thousands of requesters. »

The urgency now is to get women, men and children off the streets.
Communities like Montreuil are taking action. However, the needs remain immense. The State must therefore help these municipalities more, truly deploy the means necessary to implement its obligations in terms of emergency accommodation and regain control of a sector monopolized by the private sector and its financial logic.
Because not financing emergency accommodation means letting the social costs linked to loneliness, cold, dropping out of school, unemployment, delinquency, failing health, prostitution, vulnerability, explode. to psychological distress, to violent death. (…)

The system for opening a municipal gymnasium that Montreuil is setting up goes beyond simple sheltering by creating the conditions for real support in order to avoid a return to the street.
It is a continuation of the numerous solidarity policies implemented in Montreuil (notably the emergency accommodation capacities open all year round on its municipal territory). To open its municipal gymnasium, Montreuil formed a local partnership with the interdepartmental regional directorate of accommodation and housing (DRIHL 93).

This solidarity effort strengthens for the winter the reception capacities coordinated by 115, complete the existing emergency accommodation places in Montreuil and allows each person welcomed to be support through a support system with social workers.

The municipal gymnasium, accessible only via orientation via 115, is open for night reception, from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m. Each woman welcomed there benefits from easy access to sanitary facilities (toilets and showers) and a resting place equipped with a bed, blankets and “very cold” duvets; of warmth and comfort; an evening meal prepared with care and in line with the needs of people living on the streets by the social and solidarity company Label Gamelle, a breakfast and a hygiene and shower kit.

This shelter system is coordinated by the solidarity service of the CCAS of Montreuil, in conjunction with the 115 and the SIAO 93. Many municipal services are involved (municipal health centers, sports, buildings, education, cleanliness of buildings , workshop, public tranquility, etc.).

The essential contribution of the City’s partners is reflected in the action of listening and evaluating individual situations by social workers from Cité Caritas (Secours Catholique) and Emmaüs Alternatives present in the evening and all night.
During the day, the women accommodated will be collected in the day centers of Emmaüs Alternatives and Cité Caritas and referred for medical consultations in the municipal health centers of Montreuil. Doctors from these same municipal health centers will come to the gymnasium for specialized consultations and vaccinations.

The objective of all these support measures is to prevent people in care from returning to the streets at the end of the winter period.

During the winter of 2023-2024, 33 women, some of whom were pregnant, were cared for.
All of them, thanks to this system, were able to be directed, when the gymnasium closed, towards emergency accommodation centers, “health care drop-in beds” or accommodation and social reintegration centers. Their support also made it possible to begin monitoring their health and access to rights issues.
Last winter, when the municipal gymnasium closed, no women returned to the streets.

Contact presse :

Jean Tilloypress officer
06.63.12.85.10 / 06.30.71.80.07 / 01.48.70.60.38
jean.tilloy@remove-this.montreuil.fr