Beware of the wave of evictions!
On the sidelines of the presentation of its seventh annual report on poor housing in Europe, the Abbé Pierre Foundation and its European partner, the European Federation of National Associations Working with the Homeless, are sounding the alarm on the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe.
And especially on the risk of a strong resurgence of home evictions in the months and years to come.
“It is not in the eye of the storm that we record the most unpaid bills, but later, underlines Sarah Coupechoux, Europe manager at the Abbé Pierre Foundation.
Payment incidents remain the leading cause of evictions and public authorities must take the necessary measures now to avoid the mistakes of 2008 and a wave of evictions and homelessness in Europe.
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The two organizations are today publishing their “Seventh look at poor housing”, a report of a hundred pages and thousands of data collected from each of the 27 countries of the Union.
We learn that since the pandemic, 8.3% of poor European households (with less than 60% of the median salary of the country) have experienced unpaid rent or mortgage repayment at least once in the year. .
This rate increased by 20% between 2019 and 2020 alone.
France, a bad student at European level
As for France, it ranks in the top three bad performers behind Greece and Ireland, with 17.5% of poor households facing payment difficulties related to their housing, a figure up 10% between 2019-2020.
More generally, 5.7% of the French population (+16% in one year) encountered a payment incident.
It is certainly less than at European level, but the associations note a broadening of the profile of people at risk.
“The health crisis has not only weakened the situation of people with low incomes but also that of people whose standard of living was at the limit of precariousness”;
such as employees in the catering sector, business services, small auto-entrepreneurs, artists and workers in the cultural sectors.
In France more particularly, this concerns employees whose income is “variable and directly linked to the economic activity of their sector”, between the ages of 50 and 60, renting fairly dilapidated accommodation.
“We have seen people arrive in our offices whom we did not know before, (…) who lived without incident until today, specifies Siiri Winter, housing adviser at the Foundation, quoted in the report.
The difficulty with them is that they don't know their rights.
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Energy poverty is gaining ground
At the same time, the Abbé Pierre Foundation notes that inequalities between households have widened considerably.
“If poverty has not exploded, the cost of housing has risen sharply,” explains the European referent.
This is visible in the level of acquisition prices and rising household debt, but also in the ancillary costs of housing.
“Energy poverty in housing is gaining ground, analyzes the study.
The weight of housing and related costs (water, gas, electricity, etc.) represents more than a quarter (25.7%) of expenditure, an increase of 2.2 points” between 2019 and 2020.
And to list the increases that the Union has suffered since the return of inflation and the war in Ukraine: + 43% in energy-related costs between February 2020 and March 2022, + 250 euros on average in annual food expenditure per household… “What should we expect in 2022 when we know that in 2020 already, almost a third (30%) of Europeans were unable to meet an unexpected expense?
“, worries Sarah Coupechoux.
12,000 deportations in France in 2021
Despite a decline in the number of evictions at the start of the pandemic, the services of Abbé Pierre have recorded their recovery since, particularly in France, with more than 8,100 evictions in 2020 and 12,000 evictions in 2021.
To prevent any hemorrhage this year, some governments have taken measures to limit the rise in rental prices with the rebound in inflation.
It will remain capped at +3.5% for one year in France, against +2% in Spain.
In Germany, where rents are directly indexed to inflation, there is no blockage in sight.
"On the other hand, the government has launched a single price ticket, 9 euros, to travel by any means of transport and will above all increase the minimum wage by 25%, this represents significant structural aid", notes Sarah Coupechoux.
The Abbé Pierre Foundation would like the future French government to draw inspiration from it and to revalue, among other things, personal housing assistance (APL) aimed at the most modest.
"It is now and not at the top of the wave that structural aid must be put in place, more effective than bandages and other nudges to help households withstand" the shock, she insists.