“I am proud to say that I live here. As a mother, I am no longer ashamed,” summarizes Aissatou, 31, in two sentences. For four years, she “visited all of Lyon” going “from hotel to hotel” almost every month, with her two children, under the age of three. “My life, and that of my family, has completely changed since I arrived here in April 2022,” she says. “Here” is La Base, a former car park located in Villeurbanne, east of Lyon.
Since March 2021, it has been rehabilitated by the metropolis of Lyon, in partnership with the municipality and the association The farmhouse, to install a “village” of 17 tiny houses, these small transportable houses of 20 m2, in order to accommodate homeless women with their children. Since then, more than 2,500 people have been sheltered by the metropolis of Lyon in the two emergency accommodation centers in “tiny houses”.
“I have a home”
“At first, I didn’t understand when people were talking to me about living in a tiny house, remembers the 30-year-old. I understood the meaning when I moved in. Now I have a home, I have privacy and that changes everything. » In the other accommodations, the toilets and the kitchen are shared.
In his small 20 m2 bungalow, “there is everything you need”. The woman of Senegalese origin even hung drawings of her children there. “I would never have done that in hotels, I didn’t even have time to think about it,” she says. It is in the main room which serves as kitchen and living room, that she sleeps in a sofa bed. “There is a bedroom with bunk beds for the children,” she points out. And a bathroom with a shower, a toilet and a sink. The visit is quick but her smile is big. Her tiny house even includes an exterior where she sometimes exchanges directly with a neighbour.
“If I have to be away for an hour or two, I can leave my children with these women without any problem,” she explains. We do small favors and like that, our children play together. »
The “successful” bet of tiny houses
Beyond the habitat, La Base also helps to create links between the inhabitants. “It’s a collective chosen with independence of housing, autonomy while being part of a community,” comments one of the social workers on the site. For Aissatou, the presence of the Mas team every day of the week is also a “huge chance”. The association provides support and administrative follow-up for these women and also offers activities on a regular basis.
For Etienne Prime, service manager of the association which has existed for 60 years, the “bet” has been successful. “We didn’t really know what it was going to be like,” he admits. Our main fear was about quality because having a roof is not enough. For two years now, we have been working daily to improve life in what is basically a car park. »
“Women are not meant to stay here all their lives”
The metropolis, which acts in the name of child protection, is also satisfied to have bet on transitional urban planning. Other projects were born on this model of mobilization of vacant buildings and land to offer new places of temporary occupation.
“For La Base, it’s a three-year agreement, renewable eight times, specifies the department manager. In Vaise, where a second location has opened, the contract ends more quickly but another site in Oullins has just been fitted out. He emphasizes that these villages integrate “very well with the neighborhood” which sees “unoccupied land come back to life in good conditions”.
Despite comfort and security, the women welcomed are not intended to stay there all their lives, recalls Etienne Prime. “In 2022, we had 9 positive outings. Tiny houses should be used as a stepping stone even if there is no maximum or minimum accommodation time. What blocks total insertion is regularization. »
The metropolis asks for more funding
Renaud Payre, vice-president of the metropolis in charge of housing, also wonders about the viability of the system: “What do we do when the children, who are in school, reach the age of 4? “. He is “well aware” that “not everything goes through the tiny”.
“Especially since, according to the latest report from the Abbé Pierre foundation, there are still 22,000 people in poor housing on our territory, he says. We need more sites to advance our housing first policy and tackle homelessness. And for that, we must be accompanied. He challenges the State and the European Union and asks for “more funding”. In total, 500,000 euros by the metropolis are invested just for the Villeurbanne site.