Nantes (Loire-Atlantique)
From our regional correspondent
Under a large sail stretched between two new buildings, “Nono” smokes a cigarette on a wooden sofa decorated with colorful cushions. ” I like this little corner ”, says the 43-year-old former coach driver, who spent ten years on the street after a romantic break-up. For the past few weeks he has been living in a studio on the first floor. “ I feel good here, I have a roof over my head, I go in and out when I want. It’s better than sleeping bag in front of Galeries Lafayette! “
This tall fellow with a gentle gaze is one of the first residents of “5Ponts”, a new place to welcome and integrate the most disadvantaged, long matured by the Les Eaux Vives-Emmaüs association. Objective: to bring together previously dispersed activities, such as day care, overnight stays, social restaurants, accommodation and stabilization studios and social support and professional integration services, in the same place.
The place owes its name to the five axes of support for people in great precariousness that it intends to promote: accommodation, health, employment, autonomy and living together. ” The idea is to avoid accompanying ruptures and wandering around the city, when people have to make multiple trips to eat, sleep, wash their clothes ”, explains Christine Besnier, head of department in the association. Second objective, carried with the city of Nantes, which is deploying a new district here: to promote diversity with other audiences. Above the floors reserved for 5Ponts, the social landlord CDC Habitat rents about fifty housing units and opposite, two buildings house student housing or home ownership.
Other associations will soon be making their debut, such as Le Quai des Marchandises, on the ground floor, which will sell fresh, local and organic products and La Sauge, a market gardening greenhouse installed on the roof. (read benchmarks). ” It’s interesting to see how this place already mixes diverse audiences », Greets Hervé Régnault de La Mothe, administrator and volunteer of the association.
The social restaurant is reserved for them for the moment, but it turns from the beginning of the afternoon into a solidarity café open to all. Thanks to the “Première Heures” system, which aims to adapt work for progressive support in professional reintegration, people can work there, alongside the 90 volunteers and 20 employees of 5Ponts (mostly social workers).
The day reception can accommodate up to 80 people, the night stop 30. It accommodates people suffering from addictions or mental disorders, rejected from traditional accommodation or breaking with the 115. “ There is no typical profile, specifies Frédéric Pichonnat, interim director of 5Ponts. OYou can meet a person who has walked around the world several times like a former professional footballer who has lost everything. »Some places are reserved for women, in a separate room.
On the first floor, the studios are for some emergency accommodation (allocated via the 115) but for the most part, places of stabilization before permanent accommodation. Five are reserved for young people leaving child welfare. ” It is not easy to leave a home or a host family and land alone in a studio. We are going well with themannoy », Promises Frédéric Pichonnat.
Meddah and Nolwenn have just moved into one of the stabilization studios. They got to know each other in the street and became parents of two little girls, entrusted to Social Assistance for Children. ” We suffered a little but now we are safe, confides Meddah, in tears. We hope to soon find a bigger apartment to pick up our children. “
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