Metropolitics

Understanding Why Homeless People Refuse Emergency Accommodation

Édouard Gardella & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-03-09T06:00:00Z

The refusal of emergency accommodation by many homeless people expresses the intensity of their attachment to the communities to which they belong. While this attachment to the street or to their neighborhood exposes them to extreme precarity, it also reflects a need among homeless people for recognition and a certain rootedness.
If people sleep on the streets, it is because they have chosen to do so. This is what Sylvain Maillard, a French member of parliament from the ruling LREM party,

- From the Field / exclusion, homelessness, precarity, emergency accommodation, poverty

How Children Cope When Home is a Hotel

Erwan Le Méner & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-02-05T06:00:00Z

Emergency housing in social hotels is affecting a growing number of families in the Paris region. How does this experience impact the lives of children? What are the consequences on children's relationship to space, on how they grow up, and on how they learn, make friends and play? Erwan Le Méner shows how school plays a central role in stabilizing an otherwise precarious situation.
---- Series: Children in the City Today, one in five people experiencing homelessness in the Paris region are

- From the Field / France, Paris region, housing, children, public policy, sociabilities, vulnerability, homelessness, precarity, vulnerable housing, emergency accommodation, social emergency, social hotel, school

Good neighbours? Homeless people as seen by those who live alongside them

Marine Maurin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-06-05T04:50:00Z

Prejudices regarding the poorest in society die hard. Does living in proximity to some of these populations help change perceptions? And what role does discomfort and disturbance – whether real or merely anticipated – play in this? A study presented in Habiter à côté des SDF (“Living alongside homeless people”) seeks to analyse the reactions provoked by the presence of homeless populations among those who live nearby.
Marie Loison-Leruste's work, adapted from her PhD thesis in sociology,

- Reviews / Île-de-France, public space, Paris region, Nanterre, housing, Paris, cohabitation, nuisance, emotions, poverty, homelessness, precarity, assistance, coexistence, NIMBY, hospitality, emergency accommodation, neighbors, disturbance