emergency accommodation, in dangerous, uninhabitable, unhealthy, indecent or overcrowded units or those who have been waiting to be allocated into a social housing unit for an extensive period of time.
Concerned individuals lodge an application under the DALO law to Commissions of Mediation in each Department who then examine the requests and determine whether they are considered priority cases. According to the law these applicants should be housed or rehoused within six months, and where they are not, they can claim their rights before a court.
In its conception, it is my view that the DALO law creating a justiciable right to housing is of fundamental importance. It is well understood that access to justice is a necessary requirement to ensure human rights are more than just policy objectives or hollow entitlements. The DALO law is intended to ensure that the State and social housing associations respond with priority to individuals whose right to adequate housing has either been violated or is at risk of being violated. And where this is not achieved, for individuals and families to be able to claim their rights. Unfortunately, implementation of the DALO Law is constrained.
Of the 950,000 applicants since the DALO law came into force on 1 January 2008, 270,000 households were identified as priority cases for accessing housing and an impressive 167,200 households were provided with social housing. 62,900 households still require rehousing as of 20 February 2019.
While DALO has been successful in those regions where there is sufficient supply of adequate social housing, its implementation in bigger cities and metropolitan regions, such as the Greater Paris Region, gives rise for concern. For example, from the first applicants in 2008 that submitted a DALO claim in the Greater Paris region more than 10 years ago and were considered a priority case, 9.3 percent have not be successfully rehoused. Moreover, nearly every second priority household identified in 2017 in Greater Paris could not be provided with adequate housing as of February 2019. The High Committee for the Housing of Disadvantaged Persons has pointed out that Commissions of Mediation have tended to interpret the DALO law in an increasingly restrictive manner and highlighted that their decisions have partly be guided by informal criteria that are not in compliance with the law, such as taking into consideration the availability of housing in their respective Department[1].
Applicants accorded priority DALO status who are not granted a unit within a reasonable time are entitled to go to court to have their application enforced and many do. In those proceedings local governments are frequently ordered to provide social housing to the applicant and pay a fine that goes into a fund to support organizations providing social support and legal advice to persons living in inadequate housing conditions. In many cases the government will pay the fine but will not accord the applicant a social housing unit. The only recourse open to the applicant from there is to return to court to seek a one-time compensation of between 2,000 and 3,000 EUR. Ultimately, the effect of this is a denial of access to justice, where local governments can effectively buy their way out of the right to housing.
3. Homelessness
According to the last census conducted by the Government of France, homelessness has increased by 58% from 2001 to 2012 (93,000 to 141,500), with the number of children living in homelessness increasing by 85% in the same period. These figures are expected to increase when the results of the next census are released in 2020. The Colectif Les Morts de La Rue counted that more than one person dies every day as a result of living on the street. This is alarming and the Government of France expressed its serious concern about any person in a situation of homelessness dying in the street.
In the face of this, the Government of France has increased the annual budget devoted to emergency shelters (hebergement d'urgence) from 305 million EUR in 2012 to 820 million EUR in 2017 and also significantly increased investment into housing with social supports (logement adapté). In total more than 2 billion EUR are invested in combatting various forms of homelessness. While I commend the Government of France for recognizing this crisis and its increased efforts to shelter and support persons in situation of homelessness, I am concerned that the main focus of the response – providing more emergency beds, some of them only available 7 months of the year – is temporary in nature, and neither addresses the root causes of homelessness nor ensures durable, adequate housing for this population as required under international human rights law. Efforts to inject additional funds in adapted housing offering security of tenure and tailored social supports corresponding to individual needs
