Owner of a former Parisian kiosk, Chantal managed to make ends meet by selling pancakes with sugar for 2 euros. But this month, after 7 weeks of confinement and a stopped activity, she will not have enough to pay her rent.
Already affected by difficulties to buy food, the most modest, faced with declines in income linked to confinement, are more and more unable to pay their rent, alert associations which have received numerous requests for help in recent weeks.
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“Already 500 euros” in debt
“We do not yet know the extent of the phenomenon, but no need to be a wizard to predict that with a decrease in resources and an increase in costs, particularly in water and electricity due to confinement, we risk seeing a lot of arrears “, worries the deputy general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation (FAP), Christophe Robert.
According to the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS), which brings together 800 associations fighting against exclusion, delinquencies have increased in both the private and social sectors.
The risk, according to the associations: an explosion of rental eviction procedures with deconfinement. In 2018, 15,993 households, more than 36,000 people, were evicted with the help of the police, according to the FAP.
“I’ve been paying 600 euros for two months, instead of 850”, explains Chantal, to RSA. The 66-year-old woman, who still lives with her daughter, makes a point of paying what she can to try to avoid the worst.
On a table hung in her two-room apartment, she tells how to keep an account of her debts: “It’s already 500 euros”.
A risk of explosion of evictions
In mid-March, Emmanuel Macron had made an unprecedented announcement by deciding, in the context of the health crisis, to postpone the end of the winter truce by two months.
Running normally from November 1 to March 31, the truce was exceptionally extended until May 31, suspending the handing over to the street of those housed in emergency structures, as well as rental evictions.
But according to some social workers, tenants in difficulty have already received letters warning them of the application of an eviction procedure after this date.
“Tense”
An economist at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (Ires), Pierre Concialdi estimates in a note published in April that at least 6 million people could be in difficulty.
In Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis, the town hall announced a spectacular measure at the end of April, with the cancellation of all April rents for the 4,000 tenants of the city’s public housing authority.
An idea that has upset social landlords and which is also rejected by associations fighting against poverty.
“You should know that 3 months of rent in the private and social park in France, that represents a bill of 18 billion euros”, underlines Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the FAP.
Gold, “Most tenants do not have a drop in income. There is therefore no reason to make private or social donors extremely fragile ”, he explains.
“We need a rapid response from the state”
The associations tend to favor targeted aid for those in difficulty and ask the government to create a national fund to help pay the receipt with at least 200 million euros.
“We need a rapid response from the State to avoid a spike in rental evictions and catastrophic debt situations for households, as for landlords”, notes Florent Gueguen, Director General of FAS.
Calling on the government to “Anticipate the major risks associated with breaking out of containment”, associations also call for a prolonged truce on evictions “Until it returns to normal”.
At retirement age, Chantal is now planning to start looking for a new job. “This epidemic was the coup de grace”, she says.
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