INTERVIEW. “Some hotels that offer social hospitality are landlocked and unhygienic”, assures the president of Dal 31

How do you judge the general state of emergency of housing in Haute-Garonne?

There is not enough. It must be said that the 115 (emergency room) can only manage 8% of the calls it receives and it is still necessary to be part of the priority categories to benefit from a ceiling.

What solutions do you recommend to overcome this lack?

In an emergency, the state has the right to commandeer empty buildings, be they apartments or offices that can be converted at low cost into emergency housing. You must know that in Toulouse alone there are 23,000 m² vacant offices. The mayor of the city could ask the prefect to temporarily recover some buildings to house people in great precariousness. All of this is required by law.

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Should the prefecture be prohibited from using hoteliers to host people in need?

Right now, that’s not possible. Clearly, we can’t do without these hotel rooms. We have to make up for the shortage of emergency housing. This would mean going back to people’s basic rights even though in reality some hotels that provide social housing are either landlocked or unsanitary or both.

What other shortcomings do they suffer from?

You can’t cook there or in a very limited environment and you can’t store food, there is often no fridge available. For these people in great precariousness, it is very problematic. I know a woman who is staying in a hotel with cancer. She needs to follow a strict diet, she can’t because of this.

Should hoteliers who fail to offer decent housing conditions be penalized more severely?

This first involves checks… You have to hit the wallet and make deductions from the room rates.