Ukrainians will not have social housing at the expense of the French

• More than a million Ukrainians have already fled their country since the start of the war with Russia a week ago.

• France is organizing itself to accommodate the refugees as well as possible, the first having arrived on Wednesday.

• In Hauts-de-France, several social landlords have identified housing in their parks to make them available to refugees.

The French did not wait to be asked by their elected officials to open their arms to the Ukrainian war exiles who will arrive in France.

On the other hand, communities and institutions have also responded favorably to the government's request to accommodate future refugees as best as possible.

In Hauts-de-France, several social landlords will provide Ukrainian families with housing from their parks without depriving French applicants.

Explanations.

It was the social landlord Partenord Habitat which was the first to provide support to “Ukrainian families forced to exodus”.

"Our company will provide housing on all of its heritage in the North and Aisne", assured the lessor.

Contacted by

, the president of Partenord habitat, Jean-Noël Verfaillie, specifies that "a hundred dwellings, perhaps a little more, have been identified and that they are available now".

Where does this manna of empty housing come from?

These accommodations are distributed at the rate of about twenty per district, in other words in and around the big cities of the two departments such as Lille, Roubaix, Valenciennes, Tourcoing or even Saint-Quentin.

For Partenord, the technical modalities remain to be defined with the authorities, but the president of the company assures that “Ukrainian families who have obtained refugee status and wish to stay in the accommodation should be able to do so without problem”.

Other social landlords will play the game, notably SIGH in Valenciennes and LMH in the Lille metropolitan area.

All are in the process of listing available accommodation.

But precisely, while waiting times to obtain social housing are sometimes several years, how do landlords justify this sudden manna of empty housing?

"There are only a hundred dwellings out of a stock of 52,000 which would not have been allocated to people on the waiting list anyway", assures Jean-Noël Verfaillie.

“These are properties on technical vacancy which were not in a condition to be rented.

Because they need to be refreshed or renovated, for example.

Allocating them for Ukrainian refugees does not deprive anyone, ”replied the LMH donor to

.

For the president of Partenord habitat, this mobilization is a first.

In fact, the donors did not come forward when the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan and many civilians fled the country.

“The difference with the conflict in Afghanistan is that the influx of refugees from Ukraine is going to be very large,” admits Jean-Noël Verfaillie.

For the moment, this is not the case, the refugees arriving drop by drop on French soil.

At the time, in August 2021, only 1,500 Afghans had found refuge in France a week after the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban.

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• Lille

• Social housing

• War in Ukraine

• Refugees

• Society

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