At Secours populaire, "we went from 5,000 people helped per month to more than 11,000" -
SYSPEO / SIPA
More and more people are turning to food aid.
At the Secours populaire des Alpes-Maritimes, the figure has doubled, from 5,000 people to 11,000 in one year.
The secretary general of the federation of the department is very worried about the coming months.
According to the Observatory of Inequalities, the poverty rate in France is 14% of the population.
In Nice, it reached 21%.
And with the Covid-19 crisis, the situation "is likely to worsen", says Dominique Estrosi-Sassone, LR senator of the Alpes-Maritimes, member of the information mission on the development and the fight against precariousness and pauperization since the end of January.
She adds that "all associations are seeing it".
"The precariousness is intensifying and affecting more and more people with new audiences," she said. "It's very worrying."
“For almost a year now, a whole section of society has survived thanks to economic aid delivered by the State.
But when they will decrease or stop completely for some, there will be even more damage ”, continues the senator.
According to the elected official, “the ranks of people who can no longer feed themselves have grown.
We can speak of a humanitarian crisis because it affects all profiles and all generations.
The Covid is an accelerator, but also a revealer, of a dynamic that was already very present in our territory ”.
From 5,000 to 11,000 beneficiaries per month
The secretary general of the Alpes-Maritimes federation of Secours populaire, Jean Stellittano, confirms this observation: “Since the beginning of March, we have gone from 5,000 people assisted per month to more than 11,000.
The number of beneficiary students has been multiplied by three ”.
From the first days of confinement, queues of four to five hours formed in front of the antennas open seven days a week.
He adds: “The situation is all the more serious on the Côte d'Azur since it is a territory that lives a lot from tourism and events, sectors completely at a standstill.
So we have a lot of self-entrepreneurs, seasonal workers, small traders, people who would never have imagined one day in their life having to take the step of the association.
Today, everyone has someone around them who has been affected by this crisis ”.
In addition to the coronavirus crisis, “the cost of living and that of rents of being in a large city” are added, which explains Nice's fourth place in terms of poverty, says the senator.
Worrisome prospects for the future
The departmental secretary general of the association is very worried about the coming months.
"There are going to be companies that will file for bankruptcy, others that will suffer from over-indebtedness."
And the Secours populaire has already doubled the number of people to help.
“We add € 60,000 per month of food merchandise purchases, something that had never happened before March,” explains Jean Stellittano.
The association benefits from the European fund, unsold items from stores and collections, usually sufficient for the necessary needs.
“In addition, we are currently living on our cash flow since the Ministry of the Economy has still not decided on the 2021 budget for the social / solidarity sector,” he underlines.
For Dominique Estrosi-Sassone, to anticipate the worsening of poverty, it would be necessary, in addition to continuing the support put in place by the city of Nice, to set up a financial "base" which would allow this part of the victim society. of the coronavirus crisis to "subsist and have a minimum of means".
It would be distributed “under certain conditions of engagement by the beneficiaries”.
The Covid-19 will have revived the debates of 2017 around a universal minimum income.
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