These young unaccompanied minors, who have been camping in a square since January, will be hosted in an unoccupied building belonging to Axentia. However, they will have to leave the premises in October 2025, when work will begin as part of a real estate project.
Some 160 young migrants, currently on the street, will be housed in 2025 in a building provided by a social landlord, announced Wednesday, December 18, the city of Lyon, which will manage this reception area.
These young unaccompanied minors, who have been camping in a square since January, will be welcomed in an unoccupied building belonging to Axentia, a social enterprise specializing in particular in housing the elderly or people with disabilities.
They will have to leave the premises in October 2025, when work will begin as part of a real estate project, specifies the environmentalist town hall in a press release.
It also announces that, like last year, it will cover hotel nights during the Christmas holidays for 72 people, including 47 homeless children, currently housed in schools but who will have to leave them during the school holidays. . The cost of this measure is estimated at 35,000 euros.
One dead in fire in squatted building
The town hall, which also authorized 76 people to stay in the premises of a former school until the end of the winter break, recalls that the budget allocated to emergency accommodation fell from 70,000 to 2.4 million euros since the election of Grégory Doucet as head in 2021.
As in other large cities, the issue of homeless migrants and squats regularly creates tensions in the metropolis of Lyon.
At the beginning of December, after a fire in a squatted building which left one dead, the right-wing opposition criticized Grégory Doucet for not having demanded the eviction of the 80 people who occupied the city-owned building.
But last winter, it was his left-wing allies who criticized him for having requested the eviction of a municipal gymnasium squatted by families with children.
