Lack of housing policy: territories in danger

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TRIBUNE. Our columnist Henry Buzy-Cazaux looks back on the housing interviews that took place on August 30 in the Basque Country, a ritual for the sector at the end of each summer. The founding president of the Institute of Real Estate Services Management talks about the “violently realistic” 2024 Interviews, which highlighted the difficulty of finding housing today in the territories to which the French are attached and would like to be able to continue living.

“Territories in danger»: this was the theme of the 2024 edition of the Entretiens du logement, an annual meeting on the last weekend of each August. The issues of supply, the link between employment and housing and cooperation between local authorities at all levels were the order of the debates. No conclusion by the Minister of Housing due to resigned governmentits members prohibited from intervening on political issues relating to their portfolio.

What can we take away from these discussions? Several great ideas, which should inspire the executive that will emerge from the President of the Republic’s choice of a new Prime Minister. First, the question of supply is centralfaced with considerable needs. The queues to access social rentals, 2.6 million applications, as well as private ones, probably double, attest to this, as do the thousands of candidates for property ownership who are unable to carry out their project. It is not a question of considering that new construction is the only solution, but on the contrary, the sole mobilization of the existing vacant stock is far from providing the necessary answers to French households.

Painful links between employment and housing

It is agreed that one tenth of the total number of vacant housingestimated at 3.2 million units, actually usable, most often at the cost of significant work. Furthermore, the insufficient supply today penalizes the economic functioning of the country and compromises its development: the links between housing and employment, and between housing and training are painful. It is estimated thatone in six employees gives up the position they were selected for because they cannot find accommodation close to their companyThe situation is even more worrying for students: in the main university towns, 20% find accommodation that could be described as normal, and among the others at least a third give up on the school or faculty that had admitted them.

Finally, the 2024 Housing Discussions wanted to give voice to all levels of local authoritiesto measure what cooperation brought them together and to assess whether housing governance should evolve with differently allocated skills. It was an objective of the former Minister for Housing Patrice Vergriete, in the government led by Elisabeth Borne, to make the decentralization more effective in favor of public housing policies. Even if the rules of the game are not changed, we see that synergies are most often triggered. The elected officials of a community know how to work with the communities of other levels and make the best use of their respective prerogatives. The prefects, representing the State in the departments and regions, also work to collaborate with local elected officials. The department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques also has the particularity of benefiting from the skills of a sub-prefect responsible for housing, employment, integration, the economy and innovation with the prefect.

It ensures the most operational coordination between municipalities, inter-municipalities, the department and the region, their elected representatives and their services, as well as territorial professional organizations: other departments would be well advised to adopt the same approach. These administrative and political actors on the ground have a shared interest: individuals and families consider that the housing problems they face must be resolved as close as possible to them, by local interlocutors. They have only a vague idea of ​​national policy, and probably today a marked distrust…

Ultimately, the theme of this edition of the Entretiens was violently realistic, and it is imposed on those who will govern us: The attachment of the French to their territory, their somewhere, is today altered by housing. As a result, it is the democratic cement that is cracking. Citizens need to feel good about their local roots in order to feel comfortable with their country, and the opposite is true: how can the French, wherever they live, be happy to be French if they are not well housed? Besides – the expression is appropriate – the homeless do not recognize themselves in any city, any village. They are from nowhere, when the others are from somewhere.

Finding accommodation in the regions is a challenge

The poorly housed also have no territorial reference point, nor the pride of claiming local belonging. When finding housing in the territories, to prepare for a career, to work, to love, to start a family, to grow old, is a challenge, then the territories are in danger. It is high time to reconcile the majority of French people who suffer from housing problems with their town and regionThis will lead to a renewed look at political leaders, legitimate first of all because they are rooted, and because they have an identity address of a place on their tricolour business card.