Social housing: in Occitanie, 190,000 requests are not satisfied

En Occitanie, 190 000 demandes d'accès à un logement social restent insatisfaites.

La crise du logement toute aussi le secteur social. Le congrès HLM, qui se déroule à Montpellier, se penche sur une situation inédite en France. Avec une situation qui s’aggrave.

The 84th HLM Congress, organized by the Social Union for Housing, opened on Tuesday in Montpellier with, as a backdrop, the debate on ways out of the current social housing crisis. With an alarming observation: there are today, in Occitania, 190,000 requests for access to social housing that are not satisfied.

The solution? Create a "supply shock", as suggested by the organizers of the congress, who devoted the first debate of the event to this possible orientation.

Programs bought from developers

"We are talking of a possible supply shock, but in the first quarter, 23% of planned housing was withdrawn in France, stressed Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of Real Estate Developers (FPI). Today, we have too many offers (that we can't sell, editor's note). We withdraw some so as not to compete with each other.”
One of the solutions was to sell off some of them in block sales to the two main players in social housing in France, the Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) and Action Logement. “We acquired 17,000 from developers”, revealed Anne-Sophie Grave, Chairwoman of the Board of CDC Habitat. In Occitanie, CDC Habitat participated in the financial support for the production of 3,000 housing units.

"The crisis is getting worse for everyone"

But that is not enough: in France today, there are 2.7 million people waiting for social housing. “The housing crisis is getting worse for everyone, year after year”, recalled Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Union sociale pour l’habitat.

“I remain convinced that a proactive public policy of support around social housing would be able to get out of the crisis we are experiencing”, insists Mathieu Massot, general manager of the regional group FDI Habitat (read opposite). For Kosta Kastrinidis, director of loans at Banque des Territoires, there is a mobilisation of social landlords.

"822 million in financing in Occitanie"

"The highlight of 2024 is the level of their investments, he emphasises. As of mid-September, they had committed 13 billion euros in investments. This is more than in the whole of 2023".

"In Occitanie, there are still 822 million in financing as of September 1", adds Patrick Martinez, regional director of Banque des Territoires. Except that with the obligation to renovate old housing, these are so many financing capacities that are being cut to produce new social housing.