By Chantal Bianchi | Project manager
Accompanying homeless people: our mode of action
The diversity of our actions with people living in the streets, responds to both the diversity of situations encountered and what can be done locally. These actions are in addition to the responses provided by our associative partners or by the public authorities. To best respond to the distress of people in great need that we meet, our teams in the field have deployed several modes of action:
- Work on the street: to be present with people on the street who do not attend, or more, the usual centers and shelters.
- Day cares: offer a listening, an orientation and sometimes an accompaniment in the duration.
- Shelters: Since 1990, the management of our shelter establishments has been entrusted to an association we created, the Association des Cités du Secours Catholique. Since then, Secours Catholique has continued to manage many shelter places with lower capacity (an average of 10 beds).
Three landmarks guide our actions:
- Reach out to others: identify and be present alongside people who do not attend usual devices;
- Adapt our interventions by seeking a reciprocal relationship over time, if necessary; in fact, the exchanges and the sharing of experience between volunteers and people in precariousness are a richness that should allow each person we meet to become an actor of their change.
- Doing with: Facilitating the expression of the potentialities of people by taking into account their real needs (expressed or not), no longer look at people in hollow, through their shortcomings.
The solidarity expressed by our teams of volunteers is citizen, it corresponds to a desire to be open to others, especially the most disadvantaged, in order to build together a fraternal and just society. Our volunteer teams are professionals of social link and offer a range of relational modes:
- The personalized welcome in a friendly and collective environment, or in the street, through exchanges and listening, gives full place to the person (informal relationship);
- Participatory activities allow personal and collective expression and reinvigorate each person;
- Individual support, in the long term if necessary, is a formal relationship with objectives shared between the accompanier and the accompanied: access to rights, but also individual projects, with involvement of partners if necessary.
Focus on day cares
In small rural communities, as well as in medium-sized towns and large cities, Secours Catholique has created places to offer a first welcome and to support the various requests of people on the street to make their daily life easier.
More than 70 day cares are open throughout France. In Paris, Avignon, or Marseille, these people find landmarks and a friendly welcome. It starts with a listening, an orientation, and sometimes prolongs by an accompaniment in the duration to help them to reach their rights: domiciliation, research of lodging, steps to benefit from the social benefits ... In parallel, these receptions propose services (showers and dry cleaning), meals and various cultural, educational and sports workshops.
These day cares are often a landmark for people wandering. Even in the event of a temporary break in the relationship, the fidelity of the relationship is a principle. They facilitate meetings, personal relationships of trust. Day cares are a fertile ground for considering the always delicate transition from an informal relationship to a formal relationship, from a punctual relationship to a planned relationship, reflected over time. It becomes possible to get on the road together.
The day care of Avignon
Secours Catholique has a day care in Avignon, the only day care in the city, with 60 volunteers engaged for an average of 80 to 150 passages per morning, 5 days out of 7. This facility proposes:
- Breakfasts
- showers, laundry,
- Individual reception with administrative support
- Financial aid
- A health point (doctor, dentist, psychiatric nurse, addictions)
- French learning lessons
- Domiciliation
Avignon's day care is currently located on the ground floor of a building in the city center.
Today, it is no longer suitable for day-care activities, where more than 130 people are welcomed daily. It is old, unwelcoming and too small. It must be completely renovated and restructured to bring it up to full standards in terms of accessibility and security.
The health inspection carried out by the Prefect in February 2017 also confirmed this state of affairs.
We have now set about building a new day care project where the desired orientations for this place have been formalized:
- A place that meets the basic needs of people living in a street
- A place of orientation for access to rights
- A place to rest
- A place proposing activities in a perspective of autonomy and participation of the people coming.
The venue will be open every day, including evenings, depending on the activities planned and the volunteers involved.
A building corresponding to these specifications has been identified. Covering an area of 620 m2, and located in the immediate vicinity of the actual day care, this place, by its configuration is adapted to the creation of a day care.
However, it is necessary to refurbish and undertake major work: modification of the partitioning to create reception desks and an activity room, creation of a luggage room, a tea room, a laundrette, sanitary and showers.
Compliance is imperative to accommodate people with reduced mobility and a review of facilities: electricity, heating ...
In 2016, operating this day care in Avignon cost 200 000 USD.
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