these French people ready to do anything to find a roof

At the start of summer 2023, Julien*, 33, is looking forward to moving back to the capital. After being made redundant, he has just obtained a six-month employment contract and is looking for accommodation. “With a salary of 1,600 euros net, I knew that I would have difficulty finding something,” he confides, “so I asked my father to be a guarantor. I didn’t set any big criteria for myself, I scoured the rental sites and informal networks.” However, the weeks go by, with nothing to show for it. Real estate offers are rare, his income barely allows him to get a room in a shared apartment, the owners don’t respond… Julien therefore decides to be cunning.

To consolidate his file, he replaced his fixed-term contract with his old contract and salary, which were much more advantageous, and to avoid only being offered “broom cupboards”, he turned to subletting. “In the next six months, I moved four times… it was the only way to have a roof over my head!” he says, remembering “the constant stress” at the idea of ​​finding shelter and lugging around the suitcases in which his daily life was packed. Now back in the South, he is apprehensive: “Returning to big cities is almost essential for my professional future, but at what cost?”

Rising rents, falling salaries

Over the past ten years, Julien’s case has become commonplace. If the first difficulties in accessing housing date back to the 19th century, “the crisis reappeared in the 1990s and has experienced a spectacular surge since the 2000s,” explains Gaspard Lion, sociologist specializing in precarious housing. While prices are falling out of adjustment, wages are being pushed down – net income in the private sector increased by only 15% between 1996 and 2021 (according to INSEE) – the proportion of private rental housing is decreasing – divided by more than three in Paris since 1945, for example – and the number of households is increasing. Result ?

Very unaffordable rents, a shortage of goods, fierce competition between candidates… Until now “reserved” for the most precarious populations, the obstacles are also multiplying for more integrated and stable profiles. “Before, we left the family home, we rented, then we bought,” explains the specialist. Today, trajectories are based more on strategies!” Forms of alternative housing that are lasting, such as shared accommodation, subletting, accommodation with a relative, comfort criteria largely revised downwards, but also “almost generalized” resourcefulness, such as falsification of files.

Many of those newly affected are young people experiencing the tough competition that rages in big cities. Came to Lyon (Rhône) for her work, with an income of
4,000 euros gross per month and two guarantors, Julia, 32, still had to change her trial period to “CDI”; for an owner to trust him, after having spent a year with a stranger who sublet his apartment to him. “In the end, it went well. But I was not insured in the event of a problem and I was afraid of being scammed for a long time,” she explains.

In Paris, Xavier, 29, lied twice to live in shared accommodation in apartments that were suitable, but did not allow it. “The first time, I pretended to be in a relationship with a friend; the second, I signed a lease for two, even though there were three of us” he says, not regretting at all being able to share these “unbelievable” rents.

Less tense areas are not spared, however, as Marion, 28, tells us. Eager to buy a large house in the metropolis of Orléans (Loiret), she and her partner found “only properties with a lot of work”, and opted for smaller accommodation, around forty minutes further, even if it meant extending their commute, cutting back on their cultural life and moving away from certain essential services.

A social barrier

But these maneuvers do not always provide stability. Sent to Lyon for training, Alma, 25, ended up opting for accommodation with an acquaintance – with financial compensation – in the neighboring department. Every morning she travels by car, TER and metro, a journey of an hour and three quarters. “Fatigue and a heavy mental load,” she confides. “Many people fall, without realizing it, into poor housing,” comments the director of studies of the Foundation for Housing the Disadvantaged, Manuel Domergue.

Because if the main criteria remain the insecurity of the lease, overcrowding or an effort rate (ratio between expenses devoted to rent and income) that is too high, over a prolonged period, residential insecurity is also based on more subjective feelings. Not feeling at home, depending on someone, not being able to invite as you wish… A social barrier or a professional obstacle, which can weaken mental health. What Alexandre, a 41-year-old from Nantais, fears, has returned to live with his mother, discouraged by “vain searches and indecent proposals”, but also to have the chance to put a little money aside. “What seemed like a comfortable option has become a constraint that prevents me from planning ahead.”

Initiatives and solidarity

To counter this risk, certain initiatives are supporting the crisis in a constructive way. Louis, 22, and Margaux, 21, found an alternative in one of the intergenerational shared accommodations of the Tim and Colette association, in Lyon. On the one hand, Michèle and Jean Mura, two octogenarians alone in their large house after the departure of their children, are delighted to be of service; on the other, two students without a solution were delighted to find a room in the plush Montchat district, for 310 euros per month. “We are not completely at home, but we have everything we need, the home is reassuring and it saves us from painful situations,” they summarize.

At the same time, a handful of players are trying to innovate to make the residential process more fluid, while the relationship between owners and tenants “has naturally deteriorated,” confirms Sylvain Grataloup, president of the National Union of Real Estate Owners. More and more online services, for example, offer, for a commission, to replace traditional guarantors. Founded in 2019, SmartGarant has already supported more than 7,000 people, “notably statuses such as freelancers, expatriates, single-parent families… historically considered unstable and still misunderstood by some owners,” explains Thomas Neuraz, its co-founder.

Faced with the increase in “fragile” cases, Caroline Liby focused on solidarity by founding Appart & Sens. Present in several large cities (Lyon, Marseille or Toulouse), this new type of real estate agency brings together “people with imperfect files, but who are solvent and invested, and owners wishing to give meaning to the rental of their property”, to create a more human relationship. An approach which is slowly bearing fruit on a local scale, but responds, according to her, to a “national emergency”.

* First names have been changed.