Contact : E. Guyavarch E. Lemener

Survey in process

The number of families (defined as at least one adult with at least one minor child) receiving care from the homeless aid system is growing. The duration of care is increasing. The limited available data suggests considerable social difficulties, and a worrying state of health, both physical and psychological. The situation of children – the majority of whom are not considered children at risk despite unsafe living conditions – seems particularly alarming. Yet, we know almost nothing about these children and families. The Observatory of the Paris Samusocial, in partnership with UNICEF France, began a program of action-research, which is destined to improve knowledge of this population, and the planning of targeted actions.

Homeless families are thus poorly known, and it is difficult to discern their characteristics. They seem to follow trails of exclusion (with regard to employment or housing) well-marked in social science literature. But they do not look like "isolated" homeless people, who have been the target of the great majority of research ... and especially public action. Their composition (mainly single-parent, with a single mother) and their geographical origin (parents are mostly born abroad) closely resemble poor families living in the country. However, homeless families make up a unique poverty combining single parenthood and immigration. In fact, it is important to consider these families in a context of migration. The tightening of policies on asylum and immigration, along with the limitation of planned lodging solutions, seems to relegate more and more people, including families, to the domain of assistance to the homeless. If many families are not intended, theoretically, to become homeless, they, as well as their children, do not suffer any less the effects of an inhospitable environment. Homeless families thus represent a new public and a new challenge in the homeless question.

Faced with a real lack of work on these families, we have developed a three-year program of action research. It has two components: first, we want to characterize this population, its social trajectories and living conditions. We will do this through a quantitative, socio-demographic, and epidemiological survey on a representative sample of homeless families from the Ile-de-France region. It will pay particular attention to child development, cognitively, emotionally, and socially. A qualitative work will be simultaneously conducted with the aim of capturing the homeless experience from the perspective of the families. It will raise issues that may go unnoticed, but which are do not account any less for the experience of assistance. It will highlight experiences and skills on which to base the conception of arrangements. Secondly, we will consider the context of care. We will begin, on the one hand, with an analysis of public policy. It will explain the development and implementation of action for homeless families in the Ile-de-France. We will establish, on the other hand, the description of the services offered for these families, which does not exist today. These four studies shall allow to greater link users with their expectations and needs, on the one hand and, on the other hand, providers with their framework of action and services.

Work in process