Homeless accommodation in 2012 – Different forms for different family situations

At the beginning of 2012, 103,000 adults used accommodation or catering services at least once in towns with populations of 20,000 or over. Among these people, 81,000 adults were homeless and they were accompanied by 30,000 children. Over half of these adults were of foreign nationality. Including the 8,000 homeless in rural municipalities and small towns and the 22,500 people in centres for asylum seekers, 141,500 people were homeless in Metropolitan France at the beginning of 2012, an increase of almost 50% since 2001. Among French-speaking adult homeless persons in towns of 20,000 people or over, almost half were in collective accommodation, one-third in accommodation financed by an association, one in ten in hotels and one in ten had no accommodation at all. Almost two in five homeless people are women. They benefit from more stable accommodation conditions than men, with the latter making up almost all those without any accommodation at all. One quarter of the homeless have a job, almost half are unemployed and over one quarter are inactive.