– Where to move the String of the marginalized?
On Tuesday evening at the Lausanne City Council, the PLR demanded that the tarpaulin and the public toilets that serve as a shooting gallery be permanently dismantled. In vain.
Published today at 3:13 p.m.
The String de la Riponne, which serves as a meeting place for marginalized people and drug addicts, will have to be moved due to urgent work taking place on the square.
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The Place de la Riponne has continued to fuel debates among municipal councillors in recent sessions. Last week, it was urgent work which are carried out there. This Tuesday evening, the PLR returned to the charge concerning the drug consumption area opened in May of this year, and its consequences on public space. With a particular request made to the City by Mathilde Maillard (PLR): to permanently dismantle the String, this triangular tarpaulin under which the marginalized are held during the day in the middle of the square. The same goes for the public toilets which are used as a shooting gallery outside the opening hours of the injection premises, and this after the urgent work which is currently being carried out on the square. In vain.
“The situation in public spaces is still not satisfactory today and the work on the Riponne that needs to be done urgently is not helping,” acknowledged Emilie Moeschler (PS), municipal representative for Social Cohesion, in the preamble. Regarding public toilets, discussions are underway. The String will be affected by the second phase of the work. The Municipality intends to find another location for it, still around the Riponne. “What we want is for there to be social support in this place too, for there to be opportunities for activities, small jobs, but also perhaps leisure, because it allows you to structure a day, to be focused on something other than the spiral of consumption.”
A “horrendous” solution
For the Ensemble à Gauche group, Johann Dupuis said he was “very surprised” that the City was considering moving these people with addictions. “We built the consumption area branch in Riponne so that people in Riponne could benefit from better access to this facility. Moving them would ruin all this work, it would ruin all the efforts we have made so far to try to channel the problem of outdoor consumption. It is clearly a solution that is execrable.”
“Depriving consumers of infrastructure that would be useful would lead to inviting them into building entrances, bus stops, and spaces where we wouldn’t want to see them either,” added Vincent Vouillamoz (Vert’lib). An opinion shared by Sarah Neumann (PS): “I understand the residents of the neighborhood. I understand that we can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it anymore either. But we have to find a space that is respectful, respectful also of this population that is suffering.”
At the time of the vote, the resolution tabled by the PLR on the definitive dismantling of the toilets and the String was rejected by a large majority.
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Laurent Antonoff has been a journalist in the Vaud section since 1990. After covering the regions of Northern Vaud and the Riviera, he joined the Lausanne editorial team at the turn of the millennium. A novelist in his spare time, he won the Berner Zeitung Local Journalism Prize in 1998.More info
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