In Lyon, a private building entrusted to the municipality to accommodate 160 unaccompanied minors – Libération

This unprecedented gesture by social landlord Axentia will provide shelter for a year for young people camping at Square du Béguin, who are suffering from the cold and bad weather.

A three-story building spanning 4,500 m², with 45 rooms and their individual bathrooms. A community kitchen, activity and treatment rooms, an interior courtyard. And a central address, boulevard Farge, in the 7th arrondissement of Lyon. It is this former home for disabled people, unoccupied since March, that the social landlord Axentia agreed to entrust to the city of Lyon to shelter 160 unaccompanied minors who have been camping for almost a year at Square du Béguin, in a neighboring neighborhood. “If he can serve, he might as well serve. It corresponds to our objectives of housing the most precarious and meeting the expectations of the territories,” underlines Bertrand Dabas, deputy general manager in charge of development at Axentia.

This social housing enterprise (a private organization which fulfills a mission of general interest) produces and administers residences intended for vulnerable people – elderly, dependent, disabled or excluded – in conjunction with associations or public actors. She is not a specialist in emergency accommodation, but her audience is similar to that which will benefit from the temporary occupation of the building on Boulevard Farge, before it is demolished at the end of 2025 to make way for a new building. Except that Axentia graciously agrees to this one-year loan to the municipality, which will finance the equipment, housing management and support for young people at a high level.