would facilitate social inclusion, which might be more effective and human rights compliant in addressing homelessness.
The French shelter system is guided by the principle of unconditional (universal) access to shelter for "any person who is homeless and in a medical, mental health or social emergency." The point of entry to the shelter system is to call the emergency hotline "115". Established in 1997, those seeking information regarding services, access to emergency accommodation and day centers, as well as facilities providing health care, food, and showers can call 115, toll free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As the number of people who find themselves homeless rises, so does the number of calls made to 115. Today, the 115 service is flooded. In Paris in November 2017, only ¼ of the 35,380 requests made for shelter through the 115 were successful in finding accommodation for one or several nights. Similarly, in Toulouse in 2018, only 10% of 115 calls were answered and only 29% of these were successful in finding accommodation for one or several nights.
The demands on the 115 have undermined the unconditionality of the right to shelter creating hierarchies of the disadvantaged. I spoke to women who were fleeing domestic violence, LGBTQ youth who were no longer welcome in their family homes, migrant and refugee families sleeping on pavements, and many others who said they had called for days and even months before having their call answered and who expressed their desperation that while knowing they had an 'unconditional' right to shelter they were incapable of securing that right.
The Government of France has almost doubled the number of emergency accommodation spaces in a 5-year period from 75,347 in 2012 to 136,889 in 2017, though an acute shortage persists. While this increase is welcome, I note that it is focused on creating short term spaces in hotels, rather than the stabilisation shelters which tend to be longer term and equipped with social supports. During the winter period, 1 November to 31 March, additional temporary spaces (such as in gymnasiums) are also made available. These temporary shelter facilities are not properly equipped to meet the needs of many households, including families, women and girls and children. At times families are forced to separate in order to be sheltered. Moreover, many of those who find accommodation over the winter months face a return to living on the streets on 1 April. After the end of 2017-2018 winter period, 36% of those who were sheltered in the winter and expelled in the spring, were not provided with any alternative solutions.
For those who do secure accommodation, I echo the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' concern that for over 80% accommodation was provided for just a single night. I am also deeply concerned by the use of hotel rooms as a longer-term solution for those living in homelessness. I visited several families living in these conditions. I met a woman from Guinea in the asylum process living in a hotel room with her infant child. She had experienced gender-based violence in her journey to France. She had been provided a small, damp windowless room, on the ground floor adjacent to common use toilets for patrons of the hotel bar as well as other residents. I also met a young family of five who had been sheltered in two non-adjoining hotel rooms for over a year. The children were not old enough to sleep alone, and therefore the entire family was sleeping in one small room. They had access to shared bathrooms but lacked access to a kitchen or laundry room. In light of the lack of availability of other housing options, hotels have become long-term rather than emergency services as originally intended. As one hotel resident said plainly, "how can a hotel room feel like a home?"
I am pleased to learn that 8 cities including Bordeaux, Dijon, Lyon, and Grenoble, supported and partly financed by central government, are embarking on Housing First programs akin to the "Chez Soi d'Abord" pilot program, which had an 85 housing retention success rate.
4. Informal settlements
Informal settlements are generally created and inhabited by the poorest, most marginalized groups including people of Roma origin from Eastern Europe (amounting to about two-thirds of the informal settlement population), Traveller communities, as well as migrants and refugees predominantly from Africa and Arab states. They create and live in informal settlements because they have no other housing options.
