After climbing these last days would we see a form of relaxation? We are not talking here about the situation in Ukraine but about that of crack users at the Forceval site, near Porte de la Villette, in Paris. After the true-false move to the 12th arrondissement, all the players in the crack plan met this Tuesday morning to try to overcome their divisions and move forward in the care of these particularly fragile populations. Were present around the table, the prefect of the Ile-de-France region, the prefect of police Didier Lallement, the director general of the regional health agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France, the City of Paris, the public prosecutor’s office and the Mildeca (inter-ministerial mission to fight against drugs and addictive behaviour). So beautiful people.
The main decision of this committee is the opening of 70 additional accommodation places to strengthen the Assore system, operated by the Aurore association and financed by the State and the city of Paris. “In recent days, the passage of marauders has shown that around 70 people are in urgent need of shelter. These are people in a situation of particular vulnerability ”, indicates, in the preamble to this announcement, the press release from the prefecture of Ile-de-France. “So much the better, because we have people who sleep on the street”, comments Anne Souyris, deputy in charge of Health in Paris. In total, the Assore system will therefore have 510 places.
The prefecture relaunches the town hall
Above all, the text of the committee indicates that the ARS launched a call for projects on January 27 in order to “set up an offer of medicalized accommodation of the LHSS type [Lits halte soins santé] and AML [Lits d’accueil médicalisés] addiction-oriented. “In view of the current situation” this call for projects will follow an accelerated procedure and the “appropriations concerned, provided for by the State, have been released”. This announcement is very important since it tries to correct one of the main flaws of the crack plan, namely the failure of the logic of the course. This, “which was at the heart of the medico-social care, was hampered by the lack of accommodation places “downstream”, intended for a longer stay than emergency accommodation”, wrote the Regional Chamber of Accounts in its report last December.
However, it is precisely these “downstream” accommodations that this call for projects must set up in order to sustainably get crack users out of precariousness. Anne Souyris is also calling for the opening of more specialized accommodation units (UHS), which are sorts of reintegration apartments. “The crack plan provided for 68 and we have 26 today, knowing that there is still no UHS for women, who are more likely to suffer violence,” says Anne Souyris.
Finally, the press release gives pride of place to the actions implemented since the installation of crack users in Forceval on September 24: reinforcement of patrols, reception bus supported by the ARS and the RATP, improvement of the psychiatric load.
Despite everything, the hatchet is not completely buried between the State services and the town hall of Paris since the press release specifies that “all of these actions were undertaken on the initiative of the services of the state”. On the other hand, the prefecture sends the ball back into the court of the town hall: “the State remains attentive to any additional proposal that could be made by the City of Paris in terms of possible locations for the establishment of care, including rest areas. “What makes the Health Assistant jump: “We make them proposals such as the opening at night of Caarud [Centre d’accueil et d’accompagnement à la réduction des risques pour usagers de drogues] or the creation of a Caarud reserved for women, but we have no return. The dialogue is not yet fully restored.