'homeless' - tagged features

Life could be looking up if your homeless, French and living in Paris. The French government's come up with a new idea to sort out the country's homelessness problem. All through last winter people of no fixed abode lived in tents along the banks of the trendy canal Saint Martin area of Paris, you might  remember it from the whimsical hit movie Amelie. A lucky few have now been re-housed in a trailer park, South of Paris, courtesy of the state. The trailer park's being called the "village of hope"  and residents are expected to use their time there to find jobs and reintegrate into society. Its an experimental project, and if it proves successful, a hundred other villages-of-hope, will be built throughout the country. 

Of course, housing or the lack of a decent supply of it isn't a problem confined to the Roma people. Homelessness is back on the agenda in France after the country's politicians had hoped it had gone away. Network Europe reported in January on the public demonstrations against homelessness, the lines of red tents pitched in a trendy part of Paris. Usually by Spring, the warm weather means sympathy for people living in tents has trailed off. But this year the tents are still there. 

In France, Housing has become the hot topic. Homeless people and their supporters have set up hundreds of red tents in the centre of Paris, a visual and provocative way, of putting the plight of the homeless, into the spotlight. And it’s working……Presidential hopefuls can no longer ignore it, and are being forced to commit themselves. The problem is that campaign pledges on housing, are rarely followed through. Radio France International’s Sarah Elzas, reports on the issue that keeps making the headlines, but never seems to get resolved. 

Thousands of people in France are resorting to living all-year round in camp sites. People on low incomes are on waiting lists for years before they're offered low cost public housing. But in recent years rents in the private sector have skyrocketed, and landlords are expecting a long list of guarantees from tenants before they'll hand over the keys. You might think living on a campsite is an extreme option but more than a hundred thousand people have taken it. RFI went to meet some of them. 

Taking off for your summer holidays abroad, it would probably not cross your mind that you could end up on the street - begging for money and food. Yet in Stockholm this seems to be the case... Volunteers who work with homeless people in Stockholm say the problem has become worse this summer, also because of the number of foreign tourists who are finding themselves sleeping rough in the city. They claim embassy staff aren't always doing enough to help people who get robbed of their cash and passports leaving them stuck in Sweden with no other choice but to beg for money and food.