This is a delicate question that the National Agency for the Control of Social Housing Organizations (Ancols) asked nearly 4,000 HLM residentsas part of its annual survey of social housing tenants, the results of which it publishes this Tuesday, October 21. The policeman of social landlords asked them “how, according to (them), society perceives people living in social housing”. For a little more than a third of those questioned (35%), the company has a good image of the residents of the social park. But almost half (49%) believe on the contrary that HLM residents have a bad image among the rest of the population. And 15% of respondents do not comment, “a significant proportion”underlines Charlotte Staniszewski, research fellow at Ancols, who sought, with this question, to know “their feeling of stigma».
According to her, the perception of the image they have in public opinion is “closely correlated” has the satisfaction that social housing tenants have with their neighborhoodr. In fact, 44% of households who say they are very satisfied with their neighborhood think that society has a good image of the residents of the social park. This proportion drops to 23% for households who are very dissatisfied with their neighborhood. A dissatisfaction whose main reasons are immutable, according to Ancols, citing “problems of incivility, delinquency and neighborhood”. However, how could residents of HLM who have such a poor perception of their environment imagine that society as a whole has a positive image of it?
Social housing nevertheless seen as an opportunity
The fact remains that, for 8 out of 10 households, “having obtained social housing is a chance”. In the light, undoubtedly, of the 2.8 million people currently waiting for HLM, a queue which has continued to lengthen for several years and which the Social Union for Housing (USH), which brings together social landlords, is convinced that it will reach soon three million.
Better still, for 91% of people questioned by Ancols, obtaining social housing was a real “relief”. Particularly because, for 6 out of 10 households, this allows them to have more money for other expensesstarting with those of food, then those of health and leisure. Exactly the same proportion of social housing tenants – 6 out of 10 – believe they pay a “decent rent»both in relation to their resources and in relation to the surface area and location of their accommodation. Social housing that one tenant in two judges to be “of better quality than others, or of equivalent quality“. The others, those of the private park.
