Introduction

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Having a roof over their heads enabled the newly-housed tenants to stop running from one emergency shelter to another, to rest, to straighten out their administrative situation, to send their children to school, to sign up for health insurance and to regularise their residence status. This extraordinary experience of return to ordinary life is presented in detail in the report issued by the Lausanne School of Social Work and Health (HETSL) of the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (HES-SO).

In order to make the best possible use of the results of this first experience and to provide data to question current social policies in the housing field, the Sleep-In mandated a team of researchers from the HETSL to document the project using an ethnographic approach, focusing on the lived experiences of tenants and on the support work carried out by the Sleep-In team. New types of social vulnerabilities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have been identified in the course of the research. Recommendations concerning access to housing and health care as well as enforcement of labour laws are also included in the report.

Work that is due to begin on the perimeter of Lausanne station will bring the experiment to an end in June 2021. The city authorities involved as well as the Sleep-In team must therefore focus on finding solutions to re-house the persons concerned and draw preliminary conclusions from this social experiment.

Research mandate and methodology

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As well as a statistical analysis carried out on the basis of the data provided by the Sleep-In team, an ethnographic study was conducted by the research team from December 2020 to March 2021.

Social advice office hours

The researchers regularly attended the social advice office hours that were held from November 2020 for two hour periods twice a week.

During these office hours, tenants of the Simplon buildings could come and ask questions and describe the difficulties they were encountering in the material, administrative or any other field.

Two members of the Sleep-In team helped them find solutions by guiding them through the maze of administrative procedures, making appointments, providing help with filling out and printing documents, negotiating suspensions or partial payments for unpaid bills, etc.

The researchers documented, through the use of a field journal, the situations brought up, the exchanges that took place and the complexity of administrative actions undertaken.

In-depth interviews

Members of the research team also conducted in-depth interviews with 11 tenants who agreed to be visited in their flats, as well as with 4 members of the Sleep-In team who were specifically involved in the Simplon project.

Many informal exchanges and discussions also took place with the staff and the tenants on a variety of occasions: during the open-door hours, in the hallways and in some of the apartments; these are documented in the field journals.

Group meetings

At the end of the study, two group meetings took place in the social offices; they were attended by several tenants, both researchers and one member of the Sleep-In team.

During both these meetings the various ways in which the experiences of persons housed in the Simplon apartments could be visually illustrated were discussed; as a result, some tenants took photographs themselves (see e.g. Faye Family) or worked together with the researchers to do so (see e.g.: Adama).

Emergency housing: an ill-fitted response to the realities of homelessness

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In Lausanne, homeless persons can have access, under a range of conditions depending on the « rating » they are granted by the city’s social services, to an emergency night shelter bed for 5 Swiss francs a night. Shelters provide 57 beds in the summer, going up to 114 in the winter and more when the « Extreme Cold Plan » is activated. Moreover, during the winter, the Fondation Mère Sofia has, since 2016, opened a shelter with unconditional and free access. During the coronavirus pandemic, available infrastructures have been increased in order to provide confinement possibilities to all homeless persons.

Opened since the 90s, La Marmotte (run by the Salvation Army) and the Sleep-In were initially designed to provide emergency shelter to local persons going through a difficult time in their life, who may be entitled to social assistance benefits but do not necessarily request them on a regular basis. This figure of the « marginal » homeless person still dominates social representations, even though homelessness has considerably changed over the past twenty years.

On the one hand, the size of the homeless population has become much greater; as a result, in the city of Lausanne, the number of men and women of all ages seeking a bed for the night regularly exceeds the capacity of existing emergency shelters. On the other, the situation of these individuals is highly heterogeneous, the dominant figures in social representations of “the homeless” corresponding only to a portion of observed realities. In Lausanne, just as elsewhere in Europe, homeless persons are, in part, local residents from the city or the canton who have lost their place of abode; but they may also be economic migrants from UE countries who move around, sometimes as families, in order to find sources of income and go back to their countries after a few years or whenever lack of work becomes associated with loss of housing. Ethnic minorities are over-represented among these European migrants. Other homeless persons, in Switzerland as in the EU, are nationals from « third countries », who hold a visa or a residence permit delivered by a signatory country of the Schengen agreement.

We must emphasise here that people living in the street or in emergency shelters are only a part of the population that is excluded from the housing market; other excluded individuals, poor Swiss residents as well as migrants, are found in hotel rooms, campground trailers, squats, sublets, etc.

The FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisations Working With the Homeless) website provides a classification of types of housing exclusion (ETHOS), a broad range of analyses of the issues involved as well as presentations of the projects in which it is involved.

Discovering the pathways followed by persons housed in the Simplon buildings as an illustration of the diversity of life courses

Impacts of emergency housing policies

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Emergency doesn’t work. Well, it works in cases of emergencies, but since people live in time frames that are long, from months to years and years, then you need something different. Because emergency shelters just make people go crazy.

Charlotte, Sleep-In team member

From the 80s onwards in most Northern hemisphere countries and from the 90s in Switzerland, emergency social intervention has become the main policy response to homelessness, with a focus on the most immediate needs of concerned individuals and on short-term solutions.

Sociologists have documented and analysed these emergency policies as responses to the social problem of homelessness and highlighted their negative impacts. Clearly, they do enable some homeless persons to have access to night shelters if they meet specific conditions. However, the unconditional admission policy that is supposed to underpin this approach is greatly restricted by various measures that limit the quality of the service offered as well as the number of available places.

One of the consequences of this approach is the constant turn-over of shelter clients and the fact that they are put back on the street every morning, along with their belongings. As two Simplon tenants explain:

You are on the street at 8 am, everybody is looking at you. They know full well that you live on the street because at 8am, people are at home. And that means getting weird looks, that I try to avoid as much as possible.

Julie, Simplon building tenant

I would sleep, wake up, go to work; I would get up, usually you have to wait until 9 pm to get back in (…) So mostly we would go to the library, in the lobby, you stay where it is warm to make the time pass. But well, you still have your work stuff with you, it’s not easy. After that well, they open at 9 pm, you get in, you have to eat something, get cleaned up, you go to sleep at 10 or 11pm, get up at 5 am and at work, you are tired; during break you have a nap.

Joe, Simplon building tenant

The daily lives of the homeless are exhausting, even when they are able to stay in emergency shelters overnight. This daily grind traps people in a web of constraints that eventually feed on each other, as Joe explains: « You go round and round and in the end you haven’t gotten ahead at all ».
Without housing, it is difficult to get a stable job and without a stable job, it is impossible to get housing. The absence of more permanent solutions thus leaves homeless people in highly uncomfortable and unstable situations and leads to chronic use of emergency housing, as a Sleep-In team member emphasises : « And some of them, they have been in the emergency housing system for at least ten years ».

Emergency housing policy as it is implemented, with its disconnect with the reality of homelessness, also has an impact on shelter staff, who may feel that their work is pointless, and that their interventions could even be seen as forms of abuse. Working in an emergency shelter does not only consist in taking people in, but also in turning them away.

Life between emergency shelters and the street is exhausting, exposes individuals to a whole range of dangers, prevents them from finding stable jobs and makes it impossible for them to send their children to school. Emergency housing, while clearly necessary, is not a solution in the long run.

Long-term housing access policies, founded on human rights and based on scientific research as well as on the demands expressed by community groups, have been elaborated and implemented in various European countries, either instead of or alongside with emergency housing responses; in particular, the Housing first approach has been developed and has inspired the experiment carried out by the Sleep-In in the Simplon buildings.

The Simplon project and its implementation

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The Simplon project stems from a joint venture between the Sleep-In and a local advocacy group for housing for young people in training (ALJF); it was implemented after many meetings between the two associations and following a press conference, held in 2019, that focused on the shortage of affordable housing in Lausanne, although many apartment buildings remain empty. ALJF fights for housing rights and provides young people (students and apprentices) with cheap rooms through temporary-use contracts with owners of buildings that are empty for relatively short periods of time. In particular, the ALJF had been able to negotiate one such contract with the railway authorities (CFF) for one building on Simplon Street, that would later have to be demolished because of the expansion of Lausanne’s main railway station. As some of the units were still vacant, the ALJF and the Sleep-In reached an agreement and decided to use them to house homeless persons. The social assistance service of the city of Lausanne, that subsidises the Sleep-In, did not provide any additional support for this project.

For members of the Sleep-In team, it was an opportunity to promote more stable solutions for some homeless persons:

For us, the goal was really, we thought, this project it can be a springboard, to help people become more stable, maybe if they have some short-term job, maybe having a roof over their head, I don’t know, maybe they can get a long-term job after a while and get a residency permit. And then, with those two things sorted, they could get an apartment on the open market.

Ilyan, Sleep-In team member

According to ALJF rules, tenants do not pay rent but have to cover utility bills. The Sleep-In arranged for their clients to pay150 Swiss francs a month per adult. This figure corresponds to the cost of emergency housing for the same period (5 Swiss francs a night).

The Sleep-In team then had to choose the persons who would be offered a tenancy in one of the 23 available apartments. The operating principle used was to offer places in the Simplon buildings to persons that should, according to the city’s own policies, have access to provisions other than emergency housing:

The vision we had, it was really to try to help people move upwards from the Sleep-In to the Simplon buildings, and then onto regular housing. That was it. As far as types of clients, we really have all kinds. We have people on social assistance, people from all over, families that, because they got an apartment, would be able to put their child in school.

Ilyan, Sleep-In team member

This guiding principle led the team to offer a Simplon flat to families, to older or vulnerable adults who had been in the emergency housing system for a long time, and to persons from EU countries who were legally and sufficiently frequently working (at the time of attribution) to expect that their residency permit could be renewed and that they might later be able to find housing on the open market. These choices were of course difficult for the team to make, because it left out in the cold (or on the street…) the majority of young homeless males, particularly those from West African countries, whose lives were of course also negatively affected by the unwarranted constraints of recourse to emergency housing.

A few figures to help understand who got housing in the Simplon project

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23 apartments = 56 tenants.
One to 6 persons per apartment.

35 men and 10 women.
Average age: 32.
Three tenants have reached retirement age.
The oldest tenant is 78.

11 children (between 1 and 15 years of age): 6 attend school in Lausanne.

Range of nationalities: EU, Swiss, other continents.

Range of residence permits/rights: B permit, C permit, L permit, no residence authorisation, Swiss nationality.

Two thirds of the men and one third of the women of working age have a job; two people are in training.

Some significant project milestones

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Moving in

The homeless persons moved into the Simplon building in November 2019, with the help of the Sleep-In team. Some of the flats were clean and in very good condition, but others had to be fixed up. Some minor repairs had to be carried out, such as filling holes in some of the walls, and some flats had to be painted. Some of the tenants, particularly those who had jobs in construction, were able to take care of these tasks. The apartments also had to be furnished, and the kitchens equipped. This was made possible thanks to the help of a person who stores furniture in a large hangar and makes it available to people who need it. The Sleep-In team rented a van and moved the clients into their flats. Tenants were then able to adapt their apartments to their taste; some people decorated them and turned them into « cosy » living spaces.

Since the building was slated for demolition, some issues could not be resolved: some of the flats could not be heated to comfortable temperatures during cold spells; in some others, the hot and cold water mixing faucets for the sink or shower did not work. Tenants were accommodating: « I understand that they don’t repair anything anymore because the house will be demolished. It’s normal. I wouldn’t complain about it » (Julie, tenant). Simplon tenants bought space heaters, or mixed hot and cold water manually. From their point of view, despite these slight inconveniences, moving into these flats had a wholly beneficial impact on their lives. They point in particular to the well-being associated with being able to come and go from one’s home at will, sleep when needed and thus have enough energy for work, for family life and simply to feel like a human being.

Well now! Doesn’t even need to be said! To the one who has slept... who has no roof over his head, who goes around and around, this news, it makes him happy!

Issa, tenant

Since we have gotten this housing, only good things (…) with this place to live it feels good to be with the family.

Alizée, tenant

I am super-pleased, it’s God’s help. If you can sleep better, if I have a place to be during the day, I have time to look for a job.

Emotionally, you feel like a human being, you are not a dog anymore.

Thomas, tenant

Complaints and problems

Life in the Simplon was not immediately a smooth ride, as two types of issues quickly arose.

One or two tenant families took in other homeless persons, resulting in overcrowding in their apartments. Other tenants complained about the nuisance this caused and also brought up instances of inappropriate behaviours.

At the same time, three articles published in the free daily newspaper 20 minutes made claims that individuals were begging on the street on nearby Boulevard de Grancy and flouting COVID social distancing measures. The author of these articles pretended – without any proof other than a photo of tenants standing on their balconies – that the culprits were « Roma families » housed in the Simplon building. Over and above the stress this caused to the women whose pictures, taken in their own private space without their consent, were thrown into the public domain, these articles also led the railway authorities to threaten the ALJF with contract termination for the Simplon building if « Roma families » were still housed there.

Discussions and negotiations were conducted between the ALJF and the Sleep-In, with tenant families. as well among families themselves; the Sleep-In then took some remedial action. Tenants were removed from the apartment where overcrowding and extra guests were a clear problem. One other family received a warning, and all other tenants agreed to stop inviting other relatives to live with them in their apartments.

After this episode, no further complaints were issued either within the building or about its tenants. All tenants now cohabit peaceably and in very « ordinary » fashion, some having little contact with their neighbours while acting respectfully towards them, and others being more involved in the collective life of the building, participating in the upkeep of common spaces, making friends and collaborating in looking for jobs, writing CVs, sharing food, etc.

Lockdown

During the spring of 2020, the Simplon tenants, like all other tenants and home owners, were confined to their flats in accordance with the health measures taken due to the COVID pandemic. Just as was the case for all workers without stable jobs, opportunities to get hired went down drastically. Many contracts that ended during the pandemic were not renewed, constructions sites shut down and short-term hires became particularly scarce. Lack of income posed a problem of survival for the poorest tenants. The Sleep-In team observed that some tenants were only able to eat at the Soupe Populaire (soup kitchen), or at l’Espace where free breakfasts were offered. The team then organised the distribution of vouchers and of food, thanks to surpluses obtained from the Centrale d’Achat de la Région Lausannoise (CA-RL) and from various associations.

Social advice office hours

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Once tenants had moved in, members of the Sleep-In team planned to step back and to let them lead their lives independently. However, they soon became aware that some of the tenants were encountering problems while trying to reach a more stable living situation.

As a result, in November 2020, the Sleep-In team set up a structure of social advice and support. Twice a week for two-hour periods, team members held office hours for tenants in a space used jointly by several associations on the ground floor of one of the buildings. The limited resources available to the team, the ill-adapted IT equipment as well as the fact that the space was shared and not exclusively used for this purpose clearly represented obstacles to providing support to the tenants. However, team members attempted to overcome these difficulties and “tinkered” in order to accomplish their mission as efficiently as possible. While they are not trained social workers, their experience, their broad professional and personal networks and their extensive knowledge of low-threshold services and their contacts with a range of professionals in the area (lawyers, building management companies, social workers etc.) were very useful.

The tenants’ needs for help and support were very varied:

  • ID: renewing or obtaining ID papers.
  • Residence permits: obtaining or renewing residence permits.
  • Housing: attempting to find an apartment in a very tight housing market under very unfavourable conditions for low-income persons; this became the primary demand, as the end of tenancies in the Simplon project was drawing near (mid-June 2021).
  • Health care: getting health insurance and/or obtaining state financial support to pay the premiums, finding financial help to pay for health care.
  • Employment: writing CVs and application letters, filling out forms for unemployment insurance.
  • Debt clearance: sorting out situations of indebtedness and obtaining delays for repayments.

The requests expressed and the needs identified during social office hours involve, for the most part, complex administrative issues that necessitate interactions with a range of actors and of offices. In general, contacts with public services and institutions require good French language skills and an appropriate understanding of administrative procedures.

The social office hours also afforded opportunities for exchanges, discussions and sharing: fruits and cookies were set out on a table in the sitting-room corner, and tenants could come by to have tea or coffee. People regularly came by to say hello, to have a chat among themselves or with team members, to get or give news, to have a holler when things were difficult or – less frequently – to share happy news.

Pathways to the Simplon project: a few examples

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Ketema is a man in his thirties who is hired by a temp agency to work unloading trucks a few days a week. It is hard for him to find steady work, especially during the pandemic: « Life is too hard », says Ketema. He has an Italian passport, speaks Italian fluently and can manage in French. He came to Switzerland two or three years ago to work and to « turn his life around ». Before being settled in the Simplon building, he was « making the rounds » between La Marmotte in Lausanne and shelters in Yverdon-les-Bains and in Bienne, depending on what work he could find and, as far as sleeping arrangements, on open beds in emergency housing. When he was not working, to stay warm during the day, he would go to the « Café social » in Lausanne, a low-threshold setting that offers breakfast in the morning for the homeless. Ketema is among the first tenants to be settled in the Simplon building in December 2019. He explains that it is « beautiful » to have this apartment: he can eat there, there is heating, what is lacking is regular work and an income. Having a place to live has enabled him to « get documents sorted », although carrying out administrative tasks is difficult for him to manage. In particular, having an address in his name has enabled him to open a bank account and to be paid in his own name; before, he had to have his wages sent to a friend’s account. Ketema shares a two-room apartment with a flatmate, with whom he gets along well. His apartment is pleasant and welcoming. In the kitchen, food supplies are set out on a shelf. In his bedroom, long orange curtains cover the windows, pleasantly filtering the light. Work clothes are drying on the radiator. His health is good, « thank God », and that is fortunate since Ketema has no health insurance. He would like to stay in Switzerland permanently.

Ali comes from Morocco and lived in Italy for 10 years. He has been in Switzerland for a year and a half, leaving Italy after the break-up of a long-term live-in relationship. Homeless, he was working while sleeping in emergency night shelters. This is particularly difficult: he would finish work at 5pm while shelters only open at 8 pm. He thus had no place to go and rest until the shelter opened at 8 pm.

Ali was settled in a Simplon flat in November 2019. He feels that he was offered this option because of his good behaviour in the night shelters: he would pay what was due for the night, he is tidy. He shares his two-room apartment with another person whom he knew before moving in. They had met 3 or 4 months before as they were sleeping in the same shelters and working in the same jobs, and they get along fine. Furniture was supplied by the Sleep-In team – « they are really good people ». Ali was very happy when he heard he could move in to an apartment: « Everything changed for the better. Nothing changed for the worse… » because, as he explains « having an apartment, that’s half of one’s life ». There are « no drawbacks, only advantages »: having his own place means he can eat, wash, keep things clean and remain relatively anonymous: people do not notice him, he can walk freely on the city streets.

Ali has trained in Morocco for totally different work from the jobs he has found in Switzerland, where he has been hired in construction and on cleaning crews. He is a temp worker and works wherever agencies send him: « I accept anything temp agencies offer me. But COVID has blocked everything the last three months », so now he is being hired « by the week » at best. He hopes to find work again « in month 4 [April], because in month 4 that’s when jobs start ». Since he has a EU passport, working « is compulsory to be able to stay ». Currently he has an L permit for the second time; he would like to get a B permit, for which he has to « ask his boss ». Having a B permit makes it possible to get a lease for a flat, and also a Post Office bank card for some credit. Right now, he has the duties of a resident, such as paying the public radio/TV yearly dues (although his bill is reduced to 282 francs since he does not have a TV), but few of the opportunities.

Ali does not like to « hold out his hand ». However, he views the help provided by the Sleep-In team as « honourable », for which he is grateful.

Ali expresses real anguish and feelings of powerlessness about being homeless again. He senses that his resistance has been worn down, and cannot see himself facing « another whole slew of problems ». If he has to leave his Simplon apartment, it will be « difficult » for him « to resist ». He does not want « to relive that whole story again. The first time he was prepared, mentally », but not for a second round. « We are afraid to get out of here », he says. « We have no resources », « we survive ». Ali illustrates his current existence with a childhood memory: in Southern Morocco, he sometimes would swim across a river. « When you start from one side, you drift and you know you’ll arrive further down on the other side, not straight across but you don’t know exactly where. Right now, he feels that he is in the middle of a stream: « I got into the river, now I have to get across ».

He would like to find work here, a room, and the opportunity to rebuild his life. If it does not work out, he will leave but it will be « very difficult to start over again, to go on another voyage ». He is over 50, and he does think he can start over, in an honest way: « I have lived right, I want to die right ». What he misses is settling down and « living like a human being ».

The Carmine family, husband Pierre, wife Alizée and their 7 year-old son Julien originally come from Romania, but Pierre and Alizée have spent the past ten years or so in the South of France. They were « settled » in camps with some other family members. Their living conditions corresponded to the fourth ETHOS category: « inadequate housing (in trailers in illegal campgrounds, in insalubrious flats and under extremely overcrowded conditions) ». Alizée explains that Pierre was earning « 1200, 1000 euros » and that « there was nothing left » after minimum living expenses were paid. In France, Pierre first worked without being declared for 4 years, then a social worker helped him fill out papers to become declared. Thinking of how desperately poor some older or sick relatives were, he is determined to have access to social insurance, in particular to unemployment benefits and a retirement pension.

In 2019, the family moved to Switzerland hoping to find better living conditions. Pierre’s income also supports around ten other family members. Alizée tells that the Carmine family left the South of France without any possessions, « not even bags. Just the kid, me and my husband. » In Lausanne, the family spent a week living on the street: « There was rain, Julien was cold, he was sick, he really wasn’t well at all »; Pierre would try to keep them covered as much as he could during the night, « I was crying », she remembers. Alizée and her son then got access to emergency shelters, but Pierre was often turned away. Young and strong, he quickly found work on construction sites but the family remained homeless. These living conditions were barely bearable. Shelters open at 9.30 pm, at which time Alizée and Julien could finally « come in and sleep », but in the morning, « you get put out at 8 am. For children, it’s not OK at all »; also, « my husband, when he was working, [he was] tired, filthy, all of that. We didn’t feel good. »

In November 2019, the Sleep-In team offers the Carmine family a flat in the Simplon building. Having housing makes a complete difference with the previous situation: « It changes everything! », exclaims Pierre while laughing: fatigue is gone, because now he can rest up. They are no longer cold. And Julien can now go to school. Parents are very happy because « maybe he will come up with something when he grows up », Alizée explains, « he is going to learn to read, to speak. He’ll be counting, all of that ». Neither she nor Pierre who grew up in Romania have really gone to school. Their reading and writing skills are poor. Pierre did teach himself to read through watching subtitles on the television, though as he says: « it is more difficult for me to read when all the letters are attached » and adds humorously: « I write like my son! » He then becomes serious and admits that it is « humiliating and annoying ». For instance, since he would like to get his drivers’ licence (although he already knows how to drive), he went to sign up for driving school but was told he needs to take alphabetisation classes first. He intends to follow through on it, but as long as he is working on construction sites he does not really have the energy; he thinks it is going to be difficult.

In January 2020, right in the midst of the COVID crisis, Pierre loses his job and spends the next six months without a contract, thus losing the opportunity to get a L permit. On one construction site, a team leader told him not to come back the next day, because the workman he was replacing was coming back from holiday. Pierre did get the three-day severance pay he was entitled to, but he wonders about this episode, because a friend told him than nobody came to take over from him: « He didn’t want to work with me. I don’t know, maybe my skin, because I am a gipsy. » Pierre identifies as « Romanian » and « Roma ». In the summer of 2020, he finally finds work again through a temp agency that sends him on different sites in Nyon, Renens, or Lausanne, where he works as a bricklayer’s assistant or as an unskilled worker. His job, as he explains, is to do whatever they tell him to: empty containers, sweep up, drive a digger (although that requires skills he does not have, as he points out). The work is sometimes very physically demanding (on one site where he worked for two months in September, he had to change T-shirts twice a day because he was so hot, although the weather was cool), but sometimes the job is easy. However, Pierre never feels secure: if he wants to get a long-term contract, he needs to « have good relations », get along well with the team leader or the site manager.

In January 2021, although the temp agency had guaranteed him work for the first six months of 2021, he is laid off again: one building site is completed, and weather problems have delayed the start of another. In such cases, as he explains, « they don’t keep on temp workers ». Fortunately, Pierre is quickly rehired and in February he obtains his L permit. He is very happy.

Alizée does not have a job at the moment but she would like to « be a cleaning person, or take care of children » because covering expenses for three people on her husband’s salary is difficult: « Here, life’s expensive ». Yet she is not bored: « At 5 am, I’m up », she states; she prepares « breakfast for my husband, my son, I take him to school, I pick him up. We are fine here. With the house, we feel good, with the family, we’re fine. My husband, he goes to work. He isn’t tired when he gets up in the morning. » During the day, « I turn on the TV. I talk, I speak with people. I like to think about things » ; she also worries about what is going to happen when they have to leave the Simplon building : « It’s in my mind a lot because we are here for another four months ».

The Faye family moved into the Simplon building in April 2020. Khady, the mother, had arrived in Switzerland two years before and lived with three of their four children in various temporary apartments in the Lausanne area. When her husband joined them, they were being housed by a cousin of Khady’s in Lausanne, in a small apartment (a living room and one bedroom). The parents and their three children shared the living room for several months, until they were offered a flat in the Simplon building. Amadou (the father) and Khady previously resided in Italy. They have Italian nationality and lived there for 18 years, worked and raised their children, after they came over from West Africa. The worsening economic situation in Italy and a prolonged period of unemployment for Amadou led them to decide to emigrate to Switzerland. Since then, Amadou and Khady have both worked for temp agencies, until Amadou found a permanent job with an open-ended contract that enabled him to get B permits for the whole family. A few months after they moved in to the Simplon building they got their eldest son to come over to join them - he is now in high school. Khady works as much as she can, as a cleaner or as a kitchen aide in medical or social settings, but always as a temp and with a rate of employment that has considerably dropped since the COVID crisis. Despite the B permit, Amadou’s long-term work contract and extra income from Khady’s temp jobs, finding housing has proved very difficult: after having visited and applied for many apartments, it seems that there are always people with better incomes or smaller families to whom housing management agencies give priority. As far as subsidised housing is concerned, you have to have been a resident of the city for at least three years – which will be the case for the Faye family in early 2022. In the meantime, while awaiting permanent housing, Amadou and Khady try to ensure a stable environment for their children through requests to the school authorities for their children to be allowed to continue attending the same school and not be sent to a different one every time they have to move.

The Lamy family is comprised of Sohan, the husband, who is originally from Morocco but has an Italian passport and a L permit in Switzerland, Nora, the wife, who is Moroccan, and of their two children, Kenzo, born in 2015 in Morocco and Inès, born in 2018 in Italy. Both children have Italian nationality. The couple married in 2014 but, as Sohan explains, « we didn’t have stability until 2018 », when Nora was able to join Sohan in Italy. Inès was born a little later.

Like many other European who were affected by the 2008 crisis, Sohan came to Switzerland several times to look for work, but never stayed. In 2019 however, he came « by himself » to « put in applications in job agencies »; he got a contract: « all of sudden I got a little job with the agencies ». As he explains « if a person can get a little job to start with, that’s the keys, the first key ». The firm that hired him installs fire protection devices, Sohan feels he had « 60 % of the background. After, when I started with them, I started to learn the job. » In fact, the firm offers to hire him directly (without going through the agency) but under a « training contract », that is poorly paid: «They give you a minimum ». But he seizes the opportunity because « when you have luck, you should accept it. And you should accept right away, the way it comes. That way they’ll trust you. That way they’ll accept you etc., after that it works out. »

At the beginning of his stay, Sohan was staying at the Youth Hostel, then he moved through various emergency shelters where, as a worker, he was entitled to stay for 15 consecutive nights: « It’s 15 days. There’s La Marmotte, also the Sleep-In, you have to reserve. » Working all day and sleeping in an emergency shelter requires « a bit of patience because when you’re working all day, so if you’re jobbing, you’re only going there to sleep ».

In the midst of the COVID crisis, during the spring of 2020, Nora went to Morocco with the two children. Since the family no longer had any housing in Italy and as Nora’s residence permit was expiring in August 2020, she was not able to go back to Italy. Sohan then got Nora and the children back in Lausanne with the help of the Sleep-In team: « And, fortunately, we found the Sleep-In people who gave us a hand to have a place here for us […] First we had a three-room place for a month. And then they shifted us here. » Nora, Kenzo and Inès arrive in Lausanne mid-October 2020. Kenzo is in school, which leads the family to get health insurance for him.
At the time of the interview, the parents are concerned about a vaccine booster for which they had an appointment in Italy that they could not attend, since they were out of the country. They must find a paediatrician for the children. When asked about the difficulties they are encountering in their daily lives, they mention the refrigerator breaking down: « This lady brought us a fridge, but it’s not working properly. There is an evaporator on the bottom and this evaporator, it closes up. Then there is no outlet for the cooling fluid and we have to switch the fridge off and get it to start again. » This technical issue causes them a financial problem as the couple tries to buy in bulk when there are special deals and would like to be able to conserve food. Also, heating in the apartment is not functioning well and the parents are often cold at night. Since shops are closed because of lockdown, they have not been able to get an extra quilt that they could have picked up at the Salvation Army store. However, they do not feel it would be legitimate to ask the Sleep-In team to help because, as Sohan puts it, « you shouldn’t exaggerate ».

Sohan feels that migrating is a difficult process – « in the beginning it’s not easy. You don’t have insurance, you don’t have health services, it’s complicated » – but that for them, migration has the goal of « making our life better ». The couple would like for Nora, who has a college degree and a diploma as an « IT technician », to be able to work later on. But for now, the couple is very concerned about the immediate future: « The main worry is finding a place to live for after, especially for the children », but apartments « here, they are too expensive » and « you have to have worked for three years to get subsidised housing ».

At the Simplon building, Sohan feels positive about both the tenants and the Sleep-In team: « When i come into the building here, I feel protected » ; « with people here, it’s like with my family. Also, the people from the Sleep-In, they are just so nice. You know they are right by your side, they listen, etc. When you need it, they give your advice, they explain things, etc. » In the end, Sohan feels that « it’s ok. There is a proverb that says: drop after drop. » As a metaphor, he tells a story that goes around in Morocco: one person complains to another about being poor; the person then takes him to the hospital and shows him sick people, whose situation is much worse.

Julie, who is 78, moved into the Simplon building in a small single apartment. Born in Germany, where her brothers and sisters still live, she has lived in Switzerland practically all her adult life, where she worked and got married. When her husband lost his job, she, she took matters into her own hands and set up a business. Things were difficult at first, but with help from her relatives she was able to keep the business going for about fifteen years. Everything came crashing down when her husband became ill, and quickly died from a highly aggressive cancer. « You find yourself all on your own. Everybody drops you like you are a old sock. And then you can’t pay anymore […] I sold all the stock. I was lucky. I paid some of the bills with the money, but not all. And all of a sudden you’re on the street ». Julie kept going for one year, then she had to leave her apartment, put some of her belongings in storage and get rid of the rest. For a few years, she lived here and there, put up by friends. But friends moved or their lives changed; she tried living with flatmates but it did not work out too well. She, who hardly knew Lausanne, ended up finding out about the world of the street, places where food is distributed and emergency shelters. She went to the reservation office and found out she could only stay in each shelter for two weeks: « That way really difficult for me, two weeks at La Marmotte, two weeks at the Sleep-In, take all your stuff along. And that I thought was […] it was complicated. Things that were dirty, or that were given to me, I would pass them along so I would only have the fewest things possible with me, not have too much stuff. And you are tired, you sleep just anywhere ». In the end, the Sleep-In granted her request to stay there without alternating with la Marmotte. Among the numerous difficulties encountered in this life spent between the street and emergency shelters, besides being exhausted and cold, Julie raises the issue of security (she was robbed several times, she met « shady characters ») and of access to toilets: there are very few clean public toilets in Lausanne. Julie is also wary of how others look at her. To avoid being stared at, she has always been very careful about her personal hygiene and her appearance. Speaking of the bag that she always carries with her, she states: « still, there were some important things in there, some makeup, bits and pieces, that I kept with me. I was always careful to be clean, not badly dressed or dirty. I think it’s very important ».

Julie has always refused to apply for social assistance: « Me, I have been educated, I know about life, I am in bad spot right now but it will change soon. So I don’t need welfare. » On the one hand, she feels many people who receive social assistance are abusing the system and that people should manage by themselves in life as much as possible. On the other hand, what she has heard about the social assistance services is reinforcing her wish to remain independent: « I know some people who went to the social service. They go through all your papers. They dig into your private life. You’re not allowed to say hello or goodbye, so no. Me, my private life I lead it myself. I know what I can do and what I can’t do. » Also, she has experienced, in the context of a request for reduced health insurance premiums, being bounced from one office to another and decided it was a real waste of time.

After two years spent in the Lausanne emergency shelter system, Julie was offered a studio apartment in the Simplon building by the Sleep-In team ; she was delighted, particularly because it is near the station and a subway stop, which is important for her as she is frequently on the go. She moved in a few days before lockdown. The team got the flat furnished for her and she bought her own eiderdown, dishes etc. One of the team members offered to do her shopping so she could stay safely at home during COVID restrictions, and she accepted once; later on however, she wished to continue doing things herself, going out to walk at least one hour a day. Since she is settled in the studio apartment, she feels much better: « My health is better. I am not as tired […] That’s already a good thing because I was ever so tired. I am sleeping well. […] You feel you are better. You feel alive again, like finding again the life you had before. Before, I had a good life. » Julie has many plans for the future, but above all, she needs to find an apartment. Her search for housing should be facilitated by the fact she now has a proper address.

When he moved from Senegal to Spain at the end of the 80s when he was 32 years-old, Adama never thought « he would do immigration twice ». He worked very hard in Spain, first as a travelling vendor on markets for 2 or 3 years, before finding a job in construction where he was undocumented for 8 years. Then, in the context of regularisation drive of undocumented workers, he obtained a residence permit and a legal contract. He specialised in masonry and façade work. 10 years after his first permit, he was naturalised and founded a family in Spain. He has 3 children, between the ages of 18 and 10. However, the impact of the 2008 financial crisis gradually destroyed everything he had built:

Now it’s all over, it’s almost ten years, Spain can’t come out of the crisis […] I have my house there, I have my family there, my whole life I’ve spent there. If it wasn’t a crisis I wouldn’t come here. Even, you see, even Italians, Portuguese, you see, that’s all to find work. It’s like me, I’m European and if things are going bad in Spain then you have to move to find something to give your family […] That’s why we are dragging ourselves back and forth to find work, but it isn’t easy.

Adama, tenant

Desperate, not finding employment to support his family, he got back on the road, went to France (Nice, Paris) and back to Spain several times, but to no avail. As a last resort, he decided to try coming to Switzerland. When he arrived in 2017 or 2018, he spent two months sleeping on the street for the first time in his life. As he had no contacts in Lausanne, it took him a bit of time to find his way around in the city and get to know what services existed and where to write a CV, eat or sleep. In view of his age, he then had access to continuous reservations between La Marmotte and the Sleep-In.

Adama took us around Lausanne so that we could document his experience and, by extension, that of many other Simplon building tenants. He showed us various places he frequented during the time he spent between the street and emergency shelters. This « tour » of Lausanne locations gave Adama an opportunity to show us different places where he got controlled by the police, while nothing in his attitude or his actions could justify him being stopped. These arbitrary controls, including body searches to see whether he had any drugs or money on him, are probably what has revolted him the most in his experience in Switzerland: « That’s what has shocked me here. With a Swiss person like you, I have no problem, I give you respect, it’s your place. But the police, they don’t respect me. I am a European like them, like other people ».
Adama has only found work infrequently since he has been in Switzerland, merely a few short term jobs, clearly insufficient to provide for the support of his children. However, going back to Spain empty-handed is out of the question, even though he misses his children a lot (He has not seen them in over three years.

Bruno lives in an apartment all the way at the top of the Simplon building; from his windows, he sees the station on one side and city roofs on the other. He calls the house the Castle of Light, both because of the sunlight that enters it and in reference to the hopes it has sparked. When entering his flat, one has to step over boxes of non-perishable food (pasta and rice in particular) and piles of clothes he collects from church donations and distributes to other tenants. Books are lined up on shelves, and files are stacked up on a big table. He has gotten hold of, and installed, a large screen connected to a PC, in which he saves a range of documents including the CVs of other tenants whom he helps to put applications together, projects he sets up to provide help for destitute persons, newspaper articles, photos, poems, and many pieces of music. This is how a team member describes Bruno:

Here is someone who helps maybe sixty people. In fact, he does the work of a social worker, but entirely as a volunteer. He has a thousand projects going. And he is undocumented. He is Portuguese and has no papers. He helps everyone to find work, to sign up for insurance, any administrative tasks. He’s setting up French classes for women. He has a thousand projects going - so he’s a whole institution all by himself.

Ilyan, Sleep-In team member

Coming from a family of militants and of political exiles, he himself has lived in many countries, been a militant, and is now involved in helping the homeless, insisting on the fact that he is himself homeless (he says: « We, the homeless »). Bruno likes going on long walks. It is a habit he acquired when he had to move around with a backpack that held all his belongings, the weight of which has caused him to suffer from back pain. However, his walks now take him back to his flat, where he enjoys cooking, listening to jazz and talking politics with his next door neighbour.

Bruno is extremely well informed about existing structures, not only because ha has made use of them himself – he tells some positive and some very negative stories about his experiences (his inability to sleep in a room with snorers, scabies going around an emergency shelter... ) – but also at a formal level: he knows the system, the rights and obligations associated with the various situations of homeless persons (he has read, among others, the articles the researchers have written on the issue). He also has contacts in temp agencies, accompanies people whose French is poor or non-existent, helps them solve administrative problems etc. He has imagined and implemented several projects, such as the 4.30 a.m. Café, that involves having a booth in front of the station to distribute coffee and croissants (obtained from local bakeries) to people who have slept outside so that they can warm up before the station opens at 5a.m. Also of course, plans for the future, the Saugettes project, that would enable the experience of the Simplon to continue elsewhere and to provide various opportunities for mutual support (alphabetisation, CV writing, training, access to health care, etc.). Because, as he stated in a message:

The experience of us all being together has been excellent, including in relations between people coming from all different countries, Africans, Eastern Europeans, Northern Europeans, Latin Americans and others, single people, couples, families with children and the ongoing struggle for family reunification and highly desired integration into Swiss society. The work has been first-rate and the Sleep-In team has been great. And there is still a lot to do to show the City of Lausanne that this is an extraordinary project and that many other persons participated, with their own skills, to the adventure that will soon be over. However, we still have a lot to do to help ourselves to accept our departure from here for a more than expected return to the shelters (it would be a defeat for everyone). Even though it was a victory to offer or give opportunities to this small united nation: the results are wonderful. This was a unique pilot project so that other shelters, associations and partners can use this methodology later. A veritable revolution, how to integrate and get highly gratifying results in the struggle against precariousness in Lausanne. May the wish of each of us never stops. Today we are all brothers and sisters and it is not good to see our kin leave without being prepared for an age-old or a new adventure in their lives. This adventure will determine their future in all its aspects, be they economic, social, civic or political. A good afternoon to you and a smile to say that life is beautiful and that these challenges makes us greater than the infinite. Y viva la Revolución ! Vive la révolution ! Long live the revolution!

Bruno, tenant

Recommendations

10

There is a shortage of housing.

The authorities should be prompted to implement a Housing First policy starting with the use of properties owned by the city and/or through collaborations with housing management agencies, businesses, religious institutions and private individuals; hiring facilitators so that everything goes well; making conditions for obtaining subsidised housing and/or individual housing subsidies less stringent.

The right to working conditions compatible with human dignity is not being respected

Work with unions, with rights-oriented labour lawyers, organise social and legal open access hours, produce informational materials.

Health is poor

Clarify conditions for access to health insurance in canton Vaud, make it easier to apply for subsidies, distribute flyers: how to get insurance? How to apply for premium subsidies?

The right to live in dignity is not respected

Requesting social assistance can make one lose one’s residence permit. What if Lausanne became a sanctuary city, like San Francisco or other cities in Canada or the United Kingdom? What if some Vaud canton towns implemented « citizen card » programmes attesting the presence of persons in the town, emulating the project of the Züri City Card or that of the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds?

Homeless ≠ skilless!

Encourage mutual support, foster opportunities to exchange, to listen, to meet with the local population. Moreover, we certainly all have much to learn from the experiences of the homeless.

Simplon People Movement Press release, May 19, 2021

The Simplon project in the media

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24 heures, mercredi 26 mai 2021

Presse

« Soixante anciens sans-abri menacés de retourner à la rue »

RTS, 19h30, jeudi 27 mai 2021

Télévision

Véritable alternative à l'hébergement d'urgence, un immeuble lausannois offre un logement à une soixantaine de sans-abris

RTS Info, jeudi 27 mai 2021

Télévision

Expérience concluante de sans-abri logés dans un immeuble vide à Lausanne

RTS, Forum, vendredi 28 mai 2021

Radio

Le grand débat - Logement vacants, les sans-abris d’abord?

RTS, Quinze minutes, samedi 29 mai 2021

Radio

Quinze minutes - L'agrandissement de la gare de Lausanne oblige des habitants à quitter leur domicile

Journal «Services publics» (SSP-VPOD) no 9, mercredi 2 juin 2021

Presse

L’angoisse d’être renvoyés à la rue (page 5)

24 heures, mardi 8 juin 2021

Presse

La «nouvelle» question du logement

24 heures, mercredi 9 juin 2021

Presse

Les Peuples du Simplon seront relogés