“23,000 social housing applications pending”: the elected communist representatives of the Department raise a cry of alarm

The vote on the deficit budget of Habitat du Gard alarms the communist elected officials of the Departmental Council who, in a press release, denounce “a hard blow to the social housing sector in our department while thousands of Gard households depend on the leading lessor of social housing” which manages 15,000 social housing units in 76 municipalities in Gard.

They are all the more worried because this tense situation does not only concern Habitat du Gard, “it reflects the structural difficulties encountered by all social landlords, both locally and nationally”.

How to develop the real estate stock?

With such a budget, how will this lessor be able to maintain and develop its real estate portfolio, renovate existing housing and respond to the 23,000 pending requests”, say Christian Bastid, Vincent Bouget and Denis Lanoy. The situation is particularly worrying in Nîmes, where the pressure is already very strong “and candidates for social housing see their chances of finding housing dwindling.”

As part of Anru, financed by the State and Nîmes Métropole, “the Department of Gard,
finances urban renovation for more than €19.5 million from social landlords. We also contribute more than €3 million each year to loan guarantees to all social landlords.”.

After the observation, elected officials call for mobilization and concrete proposals: “We are calling on the government to review its social housing policies and strengthen the resources allocated to landlords and for the State to revalue APLs.” At the local level, the PC suggests quickly bringing together all the stakeholders concerned in order to build a common strategy to overcome this crisis.