France

A Variable Definition

In the narrowest sense of the term, the homeless are the persons who regularly “sleep rough,” either in the street or in other places not intended for human habitation, such as parking lots, stairwells, cellars, or public parks. They are the target population for a number of French agencies which, for example, send teams around towns and cities at night to provide assistance for rough sleepers. A slightly broader definition would include users of the various accommodation facilities for the homeless, such as night shelters, extended-stay hostels known as CHRS, or Centres d’Hébergement et de Réadaptation Sociale(Accommodation and Social Rehabilitation Centers), or hotel rooms and flats provided through voluntary agencies. This broader definition was used for statistical surveys conducted in 1995 and 1998 by the National Institute of Population Research (INED, or Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques) in Paris and its suburbs, and in 2001 by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research (INSEE, or Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques) in a representative sample of French towns and cities of 20,000 inhabitants or more. This is also the target population for a wide range of services, free or low-cost meals, day centers, and so on.

Even more broadly, the term homeless can also refer to anyone identified as inadequately housed on the basis of several criteria. These criteria might include their dwelling's physical characteristics (a wooden hut, for example, might be deemed inadquate), other living conditions and amenities (perhaps overcrowded or unsanitary), the person's occupancy status (squatting, for example, or reluctantly “doubling up” with friends or relatives), and their personal stability over time (perhaps they are under threat of eviction). The voluntary agencies working on behalf of the poorly housed usually employ definitions that encompass all or some of these situations.

Moreover, the time variable plays a role in any attempt to survey homeless people. People without a permanent home of their own typically move between different situations. For example, a few days in a hotel may be followed by a stay in a hostel, perhaps interspersed by periods of doubling up with friends.

Attitudes and Approaches

Vagrants, tramps (clochards), “roofless,” and homeless people have been a central social concern in [Page 172]France for hundreds of years. But often the compassion inspired by their miserable condition has been outweighed by the unease about their rootless, unattached state—as people with “neither house nor home” (“sans feux ni lieux”). The housing shortage and harsh economic conditions that followed World War II exacerbated the difficulty of obtaining adequate housing. The “excluded” and “poorly housed” received renewed attention after May 1968, and they were the subject of several official reports. It was during the 1980s, however, in a context of severe economic downturn, that these “marginal” and “most deprived” members of society became a priority issue for organizations such as activist groups, charities, and trade unions; for academics; and for a number of regulatory bodies and government departments, including the National Statistical Council (CNS), and the Social Services Directorate.

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