Juliette Murtin is a French teacher in Lyon and spokesperson for Jamais Sans Toit. The Lyon collective, bringing together parents, teachers and residents, is mobilizing to help street children and their families. At the end of 2024, more than three hundred and seventy-five children do not have housing in the metropolis of Lyon, including thirty-nine babies. An intolerable situation despite the promises of elected officials at all levels in recent years.
Lyon Capitale: Are you a big mouth?
Juliette Murtin: Not particularly, I'm rather shy. However, I am not afraid to open it to sound the alarm about the situations we encounter. It is more of an instinctive need than truly a character trait. Concretely, raising a cry can also mean putting up banners, alerting the press, trying to find a political solution for these families left behind.
What is the genesis of your commitment?
I entered Jamais Sans Toit as a parent. When my child was in kindergarten, I was a parent representative at the school. The principal alerted me to the fact that there was a child in my son's class sleeping outside, as well as his parents and his 2-year-old little sister. It was the middle of December, it was snowing. My first instinct was to shelter them at home. At the beginning, we hosted them alternately with another mother. But after a few days, we understood that it couldn't last, not because it wasn't comfortable for us, but because no lasting solution would be offered to them like this. So we decided to occupy the kindergarten the next day. This is where I got closer to Jamais Sans Toit.
How do you present Jamais Sans Toit?
It's a collective that was set up 10 years ago in Lyon. Each action is structured around schools which will try to shelter the children who are students there and who are on the street. This involves financing hotel nights or, what is the most spectacular but also the most effective, the occupation of schools, the time for families to integrate the legal circuit of emergency accommodation. Parents of students, teachers, neighbors in the neighborhood are then called upon to leave their own homes for a time and accompany the families inside the school establishment. Gradually, when the families with whom we trust are independent, we leave them alone at night in the establishment. This is not always easy because there are schools where the support community will mainly be the parents of the students, without the active involvement of the teachers. You always have to get your foot in the door at 6:30 p.m., when the last children leave daycare, to be able to return. Everything is simpler when staff are involved.
How many children are there on the street right now at the start of winter?
As I speak to you, we have identified three hundred and seventy-five children without official accommodation in the Lyon metropolitan area. Half is in Lyon. This is 15% more than last year, and three times more than three years ago. Thirty-nine are under 3 years old. Of these three hundred and seventy-five children, half of them are taken care of by citizen mobilization. Without this, neither the State nor the municipalities would help them. The principle of civic generosity replaces the principle of solidarity which is nevertheless enshrined in the law.
What are the profiles of the people you help?
There is no typical profile. We try not to pay attention to that. The law is quite clear on this: emergency accommodation is an unconditional right. Legally, whatever the administrative situation of the person, it is their distress situation which must be taken into account. Then there is the principle of continuity, less and less respected. From the moment a person is housed in the common law system, they cannot be thrown out. There needs to be another structure that takes over. It's just the Code of Social Action and Families. We ask nothing other than to apply these principles. Afterwards, we have everything. Migrant families, but also many families who are in a regular situation. They are in difficulty because accommodation is very expensive. The Kasbarian-Bergé law, which criminalizes precarious people instead of tackling poverty, does a lot of damage. We have people with unpaid rent who find themselves evicted much more easily, even if these profiles will be offered a solution more quickly compared to people who are in an irregular situation.
What solutions for the latter do you think?
There are not fifteen thousand solutions. Undocumented people should be regularized. Last year, the first version of the immigration law provided for regularization through work. It ultimately didn't happen, which is a shame. Everyone knows that a large proportion of emergency accommodation places are occupied by people in an irregular situation, who are working. They just want to leave the place. They would like to be able to access private housing or social housing. It's impossible for them. There is great hypocrisy about this, because these are people who contribute to the wealth of the country, who pay taxes here.
Have you not noticed any differences since the government's 2022 commitment, aiming for zero children on the street, or the signing by the City of Lyon of the Declaration of the Rights of Homeless People, in 2021?
These promises have clearly not been respected. We have a marked increase in the number of children living outside. Legally, this is a mission incumbent on the State. However, the government refuses to increase the number of emergency accommodation places to meet needs. The Court of Auditors itself denounced the short-term management of the State. Faced with this immobility, local authorities who carry humanist values must do more, even if it is not their competence, to invent alternative solutions to be able to hold on, until a strong national policy is put in place. in place. Whatever the necessary budget, whatever the sacrifices in terms of projects, we must not leave children outside.
