Since November 1, the winter plan has been triggered in Wallonia. HASith falling temperatures, homeless people are even more vulnerable. The “Great Cold Plan” therefore comes into force to increase reception and aid capacities.
In Belgium, according to the national statistics agency, 2.1 million people are at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Today, many seniors are affected. 17% of them, or almost 1 in 5 seniors, are at risk. The opportunity to focus on this launch of winter plans. So we set off to meet them, in the streets of Charleroi.
Once I have paid the rent and utilities, I have nothing left.
“I had to work a lot to not have much.” explains Micheline. “I have worked all my life as a caregiver and today I am alone and I have to count everything, otherwise I won’t get by. My son helps me sometimes but it’s really hard. Once I paid the rent, the utilities, I have nothing left.“
Counting everything, not treating yourself to more than a small restaurant on special occasions, not treating yourself to new clothes, this is also the daily life of Angela, 70 years old: “I stress every month. As soon as I receive my pension… I calculate everything so that I can still treat myself to a little pleasure, like a restaurant for example, but never anything too expensive.“
Anne-Marie, Angela’s friend, is in a relationship: “If I didn’t have my husband? I’ll be under the bridges! I had to stop working to take care of my children, then I started again… But today I only have 1000 euros in pension. Could you live on 1000 euros?“
Housing, the main difficulty
In France, several associations are warning about the situation of seniors. There, 69% of retirees have faced a situation of deprivation over the last 12 months and according to the Right to Housing for All association, housing evictions are exploding as the winter break approaches and are increasingly affecting of seniors.
In Belgium, there are no recent official figures but in 2022, researchers from VUB and ULB estimated that there were 11 evictions per day in Brussels. “The observation is alarming in France, but it is alarming here too and it is alarming throughout Europe. “, explains Christine Mahy, secretary general of the Walloon Network to Fight Poverty. “We are faced with increasing difficulty in the face of an endemic housing crisis. Today, an increasingly large part of society is having to leave their homes voluntarily or involuntarily, because the rent is too high in relation to the household’s resources. If they do not leave, at some point, the household loses its footing, delays accumulate, tensions arise with the owner and eviction procedures arrive.“, she explains.
Eat or treat yourself: the growing deprivation of our elders
On the Charleroi market, Anne-Marie tells us: “I treated myself and bought myself 4 euros worth of fruit. Any more, I couldn’t.“
Christine Mahy encounters this reality on a daily basis in the field: ” Lhe deprivations are multiple, they generally relate to health but also to food or even to any external activity. There is also energy deprivation, with seniors who no longer heat themselves because it is too expensive.“
I treated myself and bought myself 4 euros worth of fruit. Any more, I couldn’t.
Angela and Anne-Marie consider themselves lucky to have good insurance: “It was necessary for us to continue paying our hospitalization insurance. We did well because we both had cancer… Can you imagine without that? It was the end of the beans!“, jokes Anne-Marie.
“A major right to housing plan rather than repetitive extreme cold plans”
“There needs to be a major structural plan to resolve the housing problem all year round“, estimates Christine Mahy. “Because people who live on the streets, homeless or in poor housing, they live in these conditions all year round. So it’s true that winter is particularly worrying, but we can see that climate change also tells us that there are lots of other periods of the year that are just as worrying..”
The specialist does not question the usefulness of winter plans: “They bring comfort, people feel a little less abandoned. But this is not the solution to the problem.“
For the sector, the absolute emergency is a housing plan: “We need a major right to housing plan rather than repetitive extreme cold plans“, explains Christine Mahy. “While housing should be the place of security, today it has become the place of insecurity. This is what people are most afraid of today: will I keep my home? Will I find accommodation? Will I be able to pay for my accommodation? Wouldn’t I be too cold in my home? This is not normal.“
