A juvenile girl with no fixed abode jovially brandishes a teddy bear amidst two rows of tents, placed in a building that until quite recently, was deserted on the French city’s suburban edge. The youngster is part of one of approximately 60 families seeking refuge in this locale.
Most of these families are asylum seekers with no other place to call home. Their nights are spent inside tents pitched in this provisional shelter, while their daytime hours are spent wandering Parisian streets.
With the commencement of the Olympic Games, and the resultant massive security operation at Paris’s heart, large groups of homeless individuals have been uprooted from their provisional homes underneath bridges alongside the Seine and other common rough sleep sites. They’re now resorting to a recently established shelter, seemingly a dilapidated former business premises, where up to 130 individuals spend their nights in tents located on the floor.
The charity, Utopia 56, runs the shelter and dedicates itself to aiding homeless asylum seekers. It maintains a staff of six overnight, yet lacks the workforce to enable occupants to remain during daylight hours, and thus they are required to vacate each morning.
The French government has been transferring homeless asylum seekers from Paris to alternative locations since the previous year, providing a temporary housing solution for up to three weeks, on the condition that they agree to relocate. Many reverse this decision and return to Paris, where they have established a support network.
The state fervently denies that this approach has any ties to Olympic preparations. In contrast, organisations devoted to assisting asylum seekers assert that in recent times, the rate of individuals transported out of the metro has risen.
Minor migrant settlements, consisting of tent homes under Seine bridges, the former scene of the opening ceremony, have been duly eradicated. These tents were superseded by metal fencing and sizeable stone blocks designed to thwart further tent pitching. Some homeless individuals were nonetheless present in alleyway entrances in Paris’s core during the Olympics’ opening weekend.
Volunteer organisations are finding it increasingly challenging to access and offer aid to this vulnerable group because of the municipality’s efforts to shift the homeless population away from the city centre.
The L’Assiette Migrante, a group offering hot meals to the homeless, convenes each Sunday at a northern Paris community centre.
Two sizable food pots are currently cooking, anticipated to provide approximately 145 meals housed in plastic containers for distribution later today. The mission is clear cut, according to one volunteer, David Clougher: to supply one satisfyingly hot meal a week, no more no less. The volunteering pool is diverse, drawing individuals chiefly from France, but also including people from Afghanistan and confirmed refugees. Clougher, a Paris-based producer boasting an Irish-American father, has devoted four years of his life to this cause.
The Olympics’ allure has misdirected political attention away from knotty issues such as the predicament of homeless asylum seekers during the games. On the street, people don’t prioritise sport, despite potentially enjoying it. Their circumstances simply don’t permit it, says Clougher. The assembled curry and rice meals are packed into reclaimed food delivery bags ready for dispatch and aided by three youthful volunteers from the Malaysian Olympic team in Paris.
Clougher highlights a change in their usual distribution location along the Seine and the canal due to the Olympic interference. On one occasion, the group managed to donate only 40 meals at a place where they would normally hand out 150. To Clougher, the displacement of homeless individuals due to the games feels like they’re being treated inhumanely.
The first two meals are handed to two individuals asking for loose change whilst the group is travelling on the metro. The volunteers set up their distribution point near Place de la Nation park, a place identified to homeless families. A number of mothers approach with their children receiving a dinner, cake and a cup of bissap – a customary sweet African beverage. Families, some toting their possessions in bags, enjoy their meal together on nearby benches.
With half the food remaining after serving everyone, the group agrees to offer the leftovers to Utopia 56’s shelter, situated in a Paris suburb to the west.
Marwan Taiebi, the administrator for the makeshift refuge, decries what he perceives to be a grave “social sanitisation” underway in Paris ahead of the Olympics. People seeking asylum who are without homes, along with other displaced individuals, have been significantly swept under the rug. Taiebi condemns the mindset that the city must present an immaculate facade for international spectators. Meanwhile, as he speaks, a greater number of parent-child groups are checking in for the night, suggesting that those in utmost need are alarmingly ending up in a “nowhere to go” situation, he maintains.
The charitable organisation operates under an agreement with the proprietor of the erstwhile unoccupied building, who’s given a green light to utilise it as a shelter until September wraps up. Efforts are in progress to renew this deal. Failing to secure an extension means that the homeless families residing here would be compelled to relocate, once more.