A miniature castle made of recycled foam captivates walkers near Toulouse, but its creator, a homeless man who lives there, has been ordered to dismantle it, a decision he refuses to comply with.
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| David, homeless, in front of the foam castle he built, in Tournefeuille (Haute-Garonne), on December 28. |
| Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN |
More than 2 m high, passers-by see it as a “hedgehog house“, a “hobbit hut” or of “sprites“, but on Christmas Eve, he received a formal notice from the town hall of Tournefeuille, to evacuate the premises.
“It makes you bitch, it doesn’t bother anyone, and it’s pretty, frankly“, plague Laurent Mahout, 38, a resident of this residential suburb of Toulouse, who is used to taking his 6-year-old daughter there on Sundays, a day during which David, the 53-year-old homeless man, voluntarily organizes creative workshops for children.
The cabin, which looks like a fairytale setting, appeared on the banks of the Touch River in the spring, adjoining a public path frequented by sports enthusiasts and walkers.
The construction, lined with trees and fake lampposts and a stuffed animal tree, is in reality a makeshift house for the homeless, a former camp leader or leisure centre.
“One day an elderly lady passed in front of my tent and said to me: + It’s not very clean +. (…) So I built this“, explains with a smile David, who wished to keep his last name silent.
In the street for a year and a half, after his apartment was squatted, he hopes to stay in his home until the end of winter and rails against the method used by the town hall to dislodge him.
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| The foam castle erected by David, a homeless man, in Tournefeuille, on December 28. |
| Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN |
Made only of foam, recovered from a waste dumpster, then cut and repainted by him, the shelter was gradually transformed into a real miniature castle. “I did this for passers-by, he said. It’s still more pleasant to see than a tent“.
“The hut has evolved over the months, it’s great, it’s magic“, reports Souhail Amirouch, 28, a resident of the district, who did not know “not that anyone lived in it”.
“It’s foam, so if it catches fire the person can die and it could spread“, dreads a spokesperson for the town hall, specifying that in the event of a fire, “the responsibility of the mayor could be engaged“because the cabin is on public property.
However, the municipality defends itself from pushing the man to the street. “The formal notice is extended until a solution is found.“, she says, specifying that she wants “deal with the social aspect“before deciding on the fate of the makeshift shelter.
AFP/VNA/CVN