The Vaudois emergency accommodation system is “outdated”, judge associations and left-wing parties. An open letter addressed to State Councilor Rebecca Ruiz is alarmed by the upcoming closure of two places totaling more than 160 places in Lausanne and calls for “the abandonment of seasonal logic”.
The structures ofhomepage winter nights Le Répit and Borde 47 will close at the end of April. However, the Lausanne emergency accommodation system is already “saturated”, warns the missive sent on April 15 to the head of the Department of Health and Social Action (DSAS) by around twenty organizations, including the Fondation Mother Sofia, the Salvation Army, Sleep-In, but also Ensemble à Gauche, the Vaud Youth Greens and the Vaud Feminist Strike.
Since January 1, 2022, the structures ofhomepage say they had to refuse a bed 889 times for lack of space. “This figure increases every day and if the situation is catastrophic today, it will be hard to find an adjective strong enough to qualify it on May 1st”, write the authors of the letter.
To complete the picture, the various socio-sanitary centers are “overwhelmed”, street food distributions see the number of people increase “day after day” and people “sleep under the tables during the day reception of the City”. “The recurrence of situations of verbal or physical violence as well as psychic decompensation demonstrates the extent to which the system, as it has been thought out and organized until today, is outdated.”
To maintain “decent” conditions and “meet the immediate needs of the field”, the co-signatories ask to keep all the structures open throughout the year and to increase the number of parking spaces.homepage. They also want the decriminalization of “wild camping”, a term used to penalize people who sleep rough on Vaud soil.
“Thermometer Policy”
“We have been calling for an end to the thermometer policy for years,” Romain Mouron, member of Sleep-In, an association that manages a place of accommodation in Renens (VD), told Keystone-ATS. “The street doesn’t kill only when it’s minus 5 degrees outside.” According to him, the Covid-19 has further aggravated the situation on the front of precariousness.
Romain Mouron cites Geneva as an example. The municipalities of the canton du bout du lac recently agreed to pay 6.2 million francs to the City of Geneva to maintain around 200 beds which would normally disappear with the arrival of fine weather. The Association of Geneva municipalities is now working on a “permanent” solution aimed at ensuring, from 2023, a sufficient number of places, she announced.
The Sleep-In member also points out that 200 places have been created “in record time” for Ukrainian refugees in Beaulieu. “We are not asking for so much”, he specifies, but “it shows that it is possible”. Regarding people who have fled Ukraine, he recalls that they can apply for the S permit, allowing them to work in particular. “This population should therefore in principle not frequent emergency accommodation.”
Keystone-ATS contacted DSAS on Tuesday to seek a response, but has so far received no response.