Poor housing: Women are more vulnerable than men

“I didn’t think you were French in the street, Free, without anger, Dominic (this is a borrowed name). And I thought having kids would make it easier to get emergency housing…” A young woman separated from her husband after a few years from France and returned there alone with her two children. A time hosted by an acquaintance in Paris, he then experienced the galleries of 115, the call number for emergency accommodation.

He enjoyed, sometimes, three nights in a hotel. Most often he spent the night in tent camps, “Really no sleep”. The young woman received a room at the shelter, which was shared with another mother and her child. But when she went to take her third child, who was “in danger”The center refused to accommodate the large family. He knew the street again before he found himself in T3 at the Rosalie Rendu accommodation center of the Apprentis d’Auteuil Foundation near Melun. “This is a new beginning”, smiling. He is preparing for his bachelor’s degree and then he wants to train “In the food industry, cosmetics or perhaps interior decoration”.

In its annual report, published on Wednesday 1^Eh In February, the Abbe Pierre Foundation first began to describe the details “Bad House”. Women appear to be slightly more affected than men by the housing crisis, “Because they have fewer resources and they live alone more often, especially when they are old or alone with children.”Manuel Domergue, director of research at the foundation, explains.

Although 20% of the population suffers from poor living conditions, this figure rises to 40% for a single woman with one child and 59% if, like Dominique, she has three or more children. The young woman is not the only one who has faced difficulties in emergency accommodation. “Ten or twenty years ago, mothers on the street with their children would be taken care of quickly. Today it is much more difficult because of the lack of places.”Manuel Domergue notes.

A growing wealth gap

What about the availability of sustainable housing? Based on the sparse research available, the report concludes that single mothers appear to be discriminated against when entering private sector rental housing. In social housing, single-parent families, consisting of 83% single women with children, “They are slightly overrepresented in allocations (29%) compared to the share of demand (25%).points out in the report, but this is less likely to happen in stressed areas, where these families have less means to find private housing anyway.