The cap turned over on the floor remains as desperately empty as the gaze is dejected. Another lean day ahead for Alain, who has been unemployed or homeless for twenty-five years. Of course, outside, the situation has never been idyllic, “but the more time passes, the worse it gets. The sums collected are reduced day after day, and donors are becoming increasingly rare. “There are no more good days. Before, someone who was a bit generous would give you a restaurant ticket or 10 euros, and wow, it made you smile for a few hours, and you could buy some nice things with it. A few hours of almost being happy is precious, you know”. But that time seems to be over. What undermines the fifties the most in this morning’s poor harvest is that it is neither unusual nor a particularly dark day. “It’s just routine now, people give a lot less than ten or twenty years ago. »
For Alain, it’s not that passers-by no longer want to, “it’s that they can’t anymore. They pay for everything by credit card, no longer have any coins to give… Even meal tickets are going paperless. ” According Banque de France datanotes and cash now represent only a quarter of physical payments (not counting e-commerce) in the country. According to a study conducted by ING bank in 2021, 35% of French people said they did not have any cash on them in everyday life.
“For them, there is no solution”
“There was this underlying trend for years, and the confinements amplified it” with the fear of being contaminated via coins and banknotes in circulation. “Cash is disappearing, and with it, donations from people on the street, confirms Christelle, who has been homeless for ten years. In 2030, people will no longer have a room, she fears. We are moving towards the total dematerialization of money, and how will we do it? »
Julien Damon, sociologist specializing in poverty and author of The homeless question, criticism of a public action (Le lien social, 2012), also notes the dangerous evolution of society for the homeless: “Everything is dematerialized, whether it is money or work. Working people make fewer daily trips to work, with less cash. But begging does not telecommute itself, nor does it dematerialize. “Some associations or organizations have found a solution by multiplying bank card readers or online payments. “Even in some churches, it is now possible to collect credit cards,” continues the sociologist. “But for the homeless, that’s obviously not feasible. For them, there is no solution”.
The unthought of digitization
More generally, “the whole dematerialization is badly experienced by the homeless, in particular that for their rights”, continues Marie Loison, lecturer in sociology, specialist in homelessness, and author of Unequal integration (Le lien social, 2014): “The homeless are the unthought and excluded from the extreme digitization of our society”.
This disappearance of cash is accompanied by a sort of “removal of guilt” from the passer-by. “At the very beginning, when someone answered me that he had no coin on him, he was a little ashamed, lowered his eyes. It wasn’t a very credible excuse. Now they say it with aplomb, they know it’s normal in our time. People feel less obliged, there is the perfect and credible reason for not giving anything,” sighs Alain.
Purchasing, between paternalism and lack of efficiency
Those who don’t have a coin on them but still want to help often opt for purchases, but this path struggles to convince on the side of the homeless. First grievance, “I know a lot of people don’t understand, but it’s paternalism and often a bit of contempt ‘I’m going to buy you this so you don’t do anything stupid with the money I give'” , denounces Christelle. “Who better than us to know what suits us best and what to buy? We are deprived of our purchasing autonomy”
What Julien Damon demonstrates with the sandwich theorem. If in one day, ten people give 2 euros to a homeless person in the street, the latter finds himself with 20 euros which he can spend as he wants, when he wants, today or in three months. If these same ten people buy him a sandwich instead, “the person ends up with ten sandwiches, perishable and only used for food. »
Gifts that are too “school”
Maël, on the street for fourteen years, even breaks the clichés: “In reality, when you live outside, eating is probably the easiest thing. There are plenty of associations, unsold items, aid. We don’t burst our stomachs at every meal, huh, but overall it’s fine. An observation confirmed by Marie Loison: “Apart from during the health crisis, the network of associations is such that very precarious people have at least the possibility of finding food. It is on other purchases that the lack is most felt, for example for periodic protection for homeless women. »
Alain continues: “When they buy things from us, people opt for very ‘school’ options: food, and healthy as well. Once, I was bought organic, and without sweetener please. But when you sleep on the street, you don’t give a damn about that kind of consideration. With the same amount, I would have bought myself twice as much to eat, even if it is less healthy”.
“You’ll see if you don’t fancy a beer”
Beyond certain pleasurable foods that people don’t think of – “chocolate, sweets, something good and which is good for the morale more than the stomach”, continues Alain, Maël puts his feet in the dish: “Of course that sometimes, with the money given, we will buy alcohol and drugs. But what do you believe? Spend a night in the cold, and you’ll see if you don’t fancy a beer to make it all a little less bad. »
But with the dematerialization of money, and therefore the loss of autonomy over the donations received, “we fuck all the yes-men who think they know better than us what we need”, sighs Maël. Night falls, and Alain’s cap painfully displays 3.50 euros… and a Dauna tuna sandwich. “I swear, this sandwich, I can’t take it anymore. That and people’s judgment, that’s a lot… or a little, depending. »