Housing crisis among civil servants: what solutions are proposed by the government ?

La situation des fonctionnaires est “insoutenable”, alerte le député David Amiel MAXPPP – TARDIVON JC

In a report submitted to the government, Renaissance MP David Amiel warns of the situation of civil servants regarding housing and proposes several solutions.

The government is working on solutions to the housing difficulties of civil servants, whose basic salary has long been frozen while real estate prices skyrocketed. "For two years, I lived at my brother's house on the couch", says Anne-Marie, a library curator who returned to work in Paris in 2019 after several years in the Alpes-Maritimes.

"When I arrived, I earned less than 2,500 euros", she continues. With this salary, "I could only have lived in a studio, at over 45 years old", deplores Anne- Marie, who did not wish to give her last name. Finally, "I met someone, we moved in together and I now live in Montreuil en couple", she concludes.

According to the Ministry of the Civil Service, in 2023, barely 20% of requests for social housing were met in the state civil service, i.e. 21,000 housing units allocated for 105,000 requests.

An "unsustainable" situation

To try to provide solutions, the government created in 2023 an Interministerial Committee for the Housing of Public Agents (Cilap), which met this Wednesday, April 17 for the third time, at the university hospital center from Bordeaux.

The Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini "wishes the housing policy to be embodied" outside of Paris, according to his office, and is also launching on Wednesday two "territorialized diagnoses" of the housing needs of public officials, in Dunkirk and Bordeaux.

In terms of housing, the situation of civil servants is "unsustainable", warns Renaissance MP David Amiel, in its final report on the housing of public employees.

"20% of the French budget"

David Amiel estimates the additional financial effort that state civil service employers would have to make in terms of housing at around a hundred million euros.

According to the government, "the ministers will look very carefully at each of the recommendations, some will be the subject of regulatory variations (decrees or orders, Editor's note) and others will have to give rise to legislative modifications", for example in the civil service reform carried out by Stanislas Guerini and expected at the back to school.

"Housing represents nearly 20% of the French budget today", said the executive in July. However, the value of the index point, which is used to calculate the salary of civil servants, was almost frozen between 2010 and 2022.

"Two or three hours of transportation" per day

With purchasing power at half mast, "many public officials" were forced to live further away from their place of work and to travel "sometimes more than two or three hours&quot ; on a daily basis, underlined the government in the summer of 2023.

The executive handed over its roadmap this Wednesday, April 17 to Guillaume Decroix, new interministerial delegate for housing for public employees (Diloap). Between now and June, the latter will have to pilot "simplification work aimed at accelerating and securing operations creating the supply of housing on public land&quot ;, according to a copy of his mission letter consulted by l'AFP.

For David Amiel, "we have a real management problem on this issue of housing for public officials". "We have very dispersed efforts, ministries which historically do very important things and ministries which offer much fewer things to their agents", he explains. "All proposals will be submitted to dialogue", he adds.