The Beaux-Arts squat in Montpellier (Archives) -

N. Bonzom / Maxele Presse

  • The Beaux-Arts squat, occupied since 2016, was released on Wednesday, in accordance with the commitments the city had made with the state and associations.

  • Despite a court order in 2018 to leave the premises, the building had not been evacuated, and a real solidarity project had been established there.

  • But associations are calling for more lasting solutions: some people have, for the moment, only emergency accommodation solutions.

There is no one left in the Beaux-Arts squat in Montpellier (Hérault).

Since 2016, in the former Departmental Archives, the Luttopia collective has hosted dozens of families and single people in a very precarious situation.

Despite a court order in 2018 to leave the premises, the building had not been evacuated, and a real solidarity project had been established there.

Since Wednesday, in accordance with the deadline set in December by the city of Montpellier, owner of the site, the squat no longer exists.

According to Michel Calvo (PS), elected to solidarity, 81 people, including families, made up of 49 adults and 23 children, and 9 isolated people, were offered a solution to be accommodated.

"For some people, this is only emergency accommodation"

The Hérault prefecture has also agreed to re-examine the files of asylum seekers, and some have been regularized, thus facilitating their search for a home.

About a hundred residents of the rue Proudhon squat, on the other hand, "did not come to meet the social workers", who were leading this operation, adds to the elected official.

The associations, for their part, assure that the work is far from over.

For Sylvie Chamvoux, head of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation in Occitanie, if this partnership between the State, the city and the associations, which made it possible to liberate the squat, “is a success”, “for some people, it is not 'acts only of emergency accommodation, for which more lasting solutions must now be found ”.

Social housing, or in the private park, at an affordable price.

"And that is the responsibility of the State," continues Sylvie Chamvoux.

Some of the people are now accommodated in winter shelter systems, which close on May 31.

If, by May 31, they are not accompanied towards a more lasting solution, what will become of them?

"

"We will remain attentive to the situation of these people, we will not let go," says Amélie Corpet, director of the Hérault delegation of Secours Catholique.

The Luttopia collective will also continue its work in Montpellier, through a new location still kept secret, loaned by the city, where it will welcome poor people who are looking for housing in the coming months.

A subsidy of 20,000 euros will be allocated to this project at the next municipal council.

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