“We are breaking the production system”: social housing in crisis, in Occitanie

Il faudra bâtir 14 000 logements sociaux par an pendant plus de dix ans pour endiguer la crise. Midi Libre – RENE FERRANDO

Habitat social en Occitanie, which brings together social landlords in the region, is seeing its production of new housing erode sustainably, while demands from families are increasing sharply.

The system has "totally embolized and it will last, says Gilles Dupont, the boss of&# 39;Hérault Logement. The constructions that we are not planning today are families that we will not be able to house in three or four years."The alarm signal had been sounding for several years, while two curves crossed: those of applicants and that of social housing construction. From now on, the HLM offices of Occitanie describe one of the "pillars of the social state" in great difficulty fulfilling its mission.

The increase in pending requests is becoming impossible to contain, with deliveries not keeping up. Social housing in Occitania

For the first time, the number of households in the region waiting for a low-rent apartment or house will cross the 200,000 mark in 2024. There were 189,825 as of 31 December 2023 (2.6 million in France), almost 10% more than a year earlier. "An exponential curve, effect of the income crisis for eligible families", analyzes Michel Calvo, president of Habitat social en Occitanie (HSO), the federation which brings together the sixty-three regional social landlords.

That's not the only reason. The sector is facing, in a trend, an erosion of its housing production, which is shaping, "by 2026, 2027, a phenomenal crisis", estimate the directors. At the same time, the rotation of tenants "collapses" in the metropolises of Montpellier and Toulouse – the percentage of apartments released and re-let annually -, &amp ;quot;5% of the park, where we were at 10 to 11% previously", recalls Vanessa Lebel, the boss of Sète Thau Habitat.

189,825 households were registered on the national list of applicants, for the region, as of December 31, 2023. Social housing in Occitania

Fewer households leaving social housing, less housing built, more eligible families, the movement is stagnating.

14,000 per year for ten years

To mitigate this thrombosis, "we would need to be able to produce 14,000 housing units per year over more than ;a decade", envisages Michel Calvo, also president of ACM, the lessor of Montpellier Métropole. That's not the way. The State's regional programming – funded social housing – was 11,000 units for 2023. Rather than growing, it would decline to 10,000 in 2024, according to indiscretions collected by HSO before its formalization , next March. And out of the 11,000 last year, "not all of them were launched", 9,241 in reality.

The waiting time is twenty months, on average, but in reality varies greatly from one territory to another. Social housing in Occitania

In their programming as on the construction sites, the offices come up against unsuccessful markets, failures of construction companies, land that is lost, housing purchased in private programs – &amp ;quot;this is a third of our new production", underlines Alain Braun, CEO of ACM – that the promoters are unable to “going out”, faced with the vagaries of the real estate market. Without omitting the financial subject: undermined by the revaluations of Livret A, OPHLMs borrow "today between 4 and 4 .5%", compared to three times less five years ago, "the entire stock of debt" also suffering its rate increases.

VAT, APL and other RLS

"We are breaking the production apparatus", sighs Michel Calvo. This Thursday, in presenting the 2023 regional report, the president of HSO made no secret of his concerns, stressing that the moment was particularly "inopportune" to spend "five weeks without a minister" and to have "changed three times in three years".

From whoever comes, the landlords hope that he will hear their requests: put an end to the RLS (solidarity rent reduction) which has been draining their treasury since 2018, align with 5 .5% VAT of "all elements of the construction", revalue the APL, " open MaPrimeRénov' to social housing". But Gabriel Attal's first announcements did little to reassure them.

The terrible observation of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation

The HSO figures were published this Thursday, at the same time as the Abbé-Pierre Foundation delivered the conclusions of its report on poor housing, the 29th written by the structure. There is no longer any question of being alarmist because "the social housing bomb has exploded", in France, believes its general delegate, Christophe Robert.

The foundation reports 330,000 people without a fixed address, housing production at half mast, with 287,000 construction starts in 2023 compared to more than 430,000 six years earlier, some 600,000 people forced to live in substandard housing, threatening their health, safety and dignity. 2.6 million households are waiting for social housing in France. The foundation says it "has never seen this".

For Christophe Robert, this series of observations, associated with high rent prices, weighs tragically on the most vulnerable populations, the people who should be able to get off the street.

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