Very degraded and threatened with collapse, the condominium at 89 rue Henri-Barbusse in Aubervilliers is subject to a danger decree issued by the town hall on May 20.
The evacuation of the last tenants must be done Wednesday at 8 am, but questions arise concerning the relocation of the fifty inhabitants.
The municipality says it is ready to accommodate in a hotel, pending the obtaining of social housing, tenants holding a lease.
But for ruined landlords and tenants housed in slum landlords, the only way out is the street.
Whoever abolished the Ministry of Housing certainly never set foot at 89, rue Henri-Barbusse in Aubervilliers.
Since May 20 and the danger decree taken by the UDI town hall, a deaf concern has been gaining the inhabitants of this degraded condominium.
Not the everyday one that takes when you cross the cracked and propped entrance porch in a hurry or when you brush against the bare electric wires in the stairwell.
But the one that seizes when you learn that in less than a month, you find yourself on the street.
And it is this worry that grips Maëlle and Serge.
This young couple, parents of a three-month-old boy, rents a small house at the back of the plot at 89, rue Henri-Barbusse.
"In the spring, with the smell of the lime trees nearby, it really feels like being in the countryside," says Serge, on the doorstep.
On this rainy afternoon, the impression is quite different.
The trench dug by GRDF disfigures the entire inner courtyard and gives the feeling of a permanent construction site, accentuated by the presence of props almost everywhere.
Their accommodation, Maëlle and Serge will have to leave it, willingly or by force, this Wednesday morning at 9 am, so decided by the decree of danger.
They are about fifty inhabitants of the joint ownership in the same case.
The decree was taken because this "co-ownership threatens to collapse", explains Véronique Dauvergne, assistant in charge of Health, Hygiene and Sanitation.
A legal expert went to the scene on May 13 to examine the four buildings of 89. The first, a three-storey building, overlooks the street and houses a small convenience store.
Via a porch, one reaches the second building, two floors, then the third building and finally the set of small pavilions, where Maëlle and Serge reside.
“A grave and imminent danger”
In her report, the expert never stops listing the dangers of buildings.
Noting that "these buildings are old and sorely lacking in maintenance", she notes that for the first building "short-term partial collapse is to be feared" and that "the risk of electrocution and fire is proven".
The second is “affected by the same disorders and advanced corrosion of the structures of the porch and the cellars”.
In conclusion, she asserts that there is “a serious and imminent danger”.
This situation is not recent since, as noted by the expert, "this property complex has already been the subject in previous years of several decrees of imminent and ordinary perils".
The last dates back to 2014, Serge thinks he remembers, it is in any case from this time that the installation of the props dates.
The maintenance of the condominium has never really been assured, some owners accumulating "nearly 30,000 euros in debt", indicates the young father.
This slow degradation causes problems on a daily basis.
"Two or three months ago, we woke up without water," says Serge.
The water pipe that passed through a cellar burst, creating a huge geyser.
A few years ago, the trustee "who never ensured the follow-up", according to the tenant,
And as misery calls misery, slumlords have deteriorated the 89 a little more. In the third building, for 3 years, a family of Syrian refugees from Homs, with a two-month-old child, lives in a two-room apartment barely 25 m² with "access to a cellar infested with rats and cockroaches", according to Serge.
Price of the monthly rent: one thousand euros, payable in cash of course.
"There are three sleep merchants here, but with the mobilization, we are afraid of reprisals", concedes the young man.
Ban on moving
Because faced with the eviction notice, a group was set up with the support of the DAL association (Right to housing) to find a rehousing solution for the fifty or so inhabitants.
So far these are meager.
The town hall proposes to rehouse the tenants with leases.
This would be done in hotels pending security and renovation work.
“There are 80,000 euros worth of security work, explains Maëlle.
After which we can return to the accommodations, move our belongings.
“Because the decree prohibits removals because of the fragility of the main porch and recommends leaving with a bag!
As most of the inhabitants did not want to leave their belongings unattended and for an unknown period of time in an empty building, almost all of them have already put their furniture away.
Then the renovation of the condominium “estimated at more than one million euros and for a period of one year, should allow us to find our homes”.
Except that it is up to the co-owners to pay, with nevertheless aid from Anah, and that given their financial situation, the inhabitants are not about to review their accommodation.
The solution, in order not to stay indefinitely in a hotel, is therefore to apply for social housing, but in the 93, the demand greatly exceeds the supply - "there are nine times more applicants for housing than offers available", according to Seine-Saint-Denis Habitat - and the wait can last for years.
Passy, who is following the case for DAL, fears that the inhabitants will "stay for years at the hotel in unsatisfactory conditions".
“We try to limit ourselves to Aubervilliers for social housing, says Véronique Dauvergne.
But we also look at the level of the department.
Maëlle and Serge, who did not plan to meet up at a hotel with their baby for an indefinite period, managed to find a studio that a friend lent them for a while.
The town hall accused
But for penniless owners and victims of slum landlords, no solution is emerging.
“As long as they don't have leases, the town hall doesn't have to relocate them,” says Véronique Dauvergne, who specifies: “We don't do it lightly.
To prevent these residents from ending up on the street, the collective has multiplied demonstrations and meetings with the municipality, without conclusive results.
"We cannot put people out after years in unsanitary housing", protests Passy, who believes that with regard to article L521-3-1 of the Construction and Housing Code, the town hall has l obligation to rehouse the occupants of 89.
“It is deplorable that we have come to this,” comments Bastien Lachaud, the LFI deputy for Aubervilliers, present on Friday at a rally in front of the building.
“I do not understand that the town hall does not want to relocate, he admits.
There are children who live there and go to school right next door, this evacuation jeopardizes their schooling!
To shelter them is not to send them under a bridge.
»
The difficulty is that the 89 is not the only building threatening ruin that the town hall has to deal with.
"We have about 20% of private housing that is degraded," says Véronique Dauvergne.
"This is the third building that we have supported in two years in Aubervilliers", adds Passy.
"But we do not take the measure of the extent of the problem" laments the LFI deputy.
The latter seized the prefect to postpone the evacuation, even if it remains unlikely.
Maëlle and Serge will be in their accommodation on Thursday morning, waiting to be evacuated.
"If we don't have any rehousing solutions by then, we will set up camp on the forecourt of the Town Hall", warns Passy.
History that the public authorities can no longer look away from the miserable habitat.
Bordeaux
Bordeaux: "It's not normal to live like that, for anyone", testifies a mother who lives in 7m2 with three children
Company
Marseille: The squatters of the huge degraded condominium of Parc Corot evacuated on Monday
Paris
Ile-de-France
Aubervilliers
Lodging
Bad housing