With fewer tourists to entertain, it has found a much more important use
December 3, 2020 11:26 PM   Subscribe

An empty Paris hotel now shelters the homeless - "In normal times the Hotel Avenir Montmartre is a tourist magnet with its views of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur church, but COVID-19 has scared off the usual guests. Instead, the hotel has opened its doors to the homeless."

Pandemic silver lining: empty Paris hotel shelters the homeless - "The hotel's management have, for a year, handed over their rooms to homeless charity Emmaus Solidarite, which is now using them to accommodate people who would otherwise be on the streets... Residents receive three meals a day in the hotel's breakfast room, and each room has a television and an en suite shower room. For the charity, the hotel provides a safe base from which they can try to help rebuild residents' lives. The charity is covering the cost with government aid."

also btw...
posted by kliuless (11 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
We did something similar for homeless people here in Melbourne, but now that the crisis is less acute they're being thrown back onto the streets encouraged to access alternative accommodation.

I mean, proper accommodation is cheaper, certainly once you factor in externalities, and more humane, and simply better for everyone, but does it properly incentivise people not to be crazy or impoverished or the victims of violence? No it does not. We had thousands of people suddenly sleeping in the same place every night, with their own lock on the door of their own room. Give everyone that and who's going to want to achieve.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:57 AM on December 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


One of the very few things the UK Government's gotten right during the pandemic was to take homeless people off the streets in huge numbers and give them free hotel rooms. I imagine they've all been ejected again by now, but for a few months there the initiative seemed to work rather well.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:06 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Since there are already a bunch of US-related links, a timely tale: in the nearest big city to me, state forces (controlled by Republicans) swept in to break up settlements of homeless people and the municipal government scrambled to find housing as winter closed in. But then, just as a deal was about to close on an emergency shelter location, a real estate developer decided he wanted to be a cartoon bad guy, cashed in his family jewels or something, and bought the property right before city and charity officials could ink the deal to begin using it—the day before Thanksgiving!

Dude seriously wanted to be worse than Ebenezer Scrooge—and his name is Ben Gamache btw, let the Streisand effect bells ring out—instead of saying “Are there no poor-houses?” to Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (they were in the original, right?) it's “There will be no poor-houses!”
posted by XMLicious at 2:40 AM on December 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


In Miami the Homeless Trust (which is not non-controversial, mind) finally got around to putting some homeless people in hotels during the worst of the pandemic when business was almost entirely dead. They have their own dormitory, but it is literally always full, so there are a lot of people who have to choose between sleeping in common areas or staying out on the street.

Because a lot of the people who do choose to sleep on the street are in their view doing it by choice (and, to be fair, often refuse alternative arrangements), nothing was done to house much of the city's homeless until it was decided that the police would be breaking up any group camps, which they can't normally do thanks to a consent decree. I found it quite telling that the cops and the rest of the city government took the emergency as a reason to go take people's shit and otherwise harass the homeless.

Once things calmed down a bit they tried putting a happy face on it by giving out masks and hand sanitizer to the people still living on the street. Whoopie!

Needless to say, the moment the governor stopped harassing people at the border and flights started back up, thus bringing in the tourists again, all the hotels that had been participating in housing homeless people kicked them out in short order.

The sad thing is that (illegal) permanent AirBnBs alone would provide enough rooms to house every homeless person in the city. "Everyone" agrees that we can't possibly do anything too nice, though, because the rarity of cold weather already attracts too many homeless from elsewhere. It's such bullshit.
posted by wierdo at 3:28 AM on December 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Similar to the Hotel Lucerne on the UWS in NYC
posted by DJZouke at 5:14 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


These stories are heartening, even if they are often only band-aids on the issue. My city’s approach to homelessness can be gauged by the knowledge that a year ago the mayor decreed that any motorist who handed money out the car window to a panhandler would face charges of distracted driving.

Considerable pushback — including media attention from all over the country and reporters pointing out that she had just criminalized drive-through windows in fast-food restaurants — means the proposed new law has never been enacted.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:39 AM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Seattle, as per usual, half-assed its response. Unhoused community members were given access to hotel rooms, and found it paid dividends (DESC report, Seattle Times Link), and resulted in more successful outcomes than congregational housing. I know I read an article -- that I can no longer find, grar -- where a social worker with DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center) was interviewed about how much easier it was to work with her clients since, among other things, she actually had privacy to talk to them. Also, it turns out if you give people a safe place to sleep with a locking door so they don't have to worry about themselves/their possessions, that generally helps with mental health.

What? Oh, no, no, no, the cops shut down the mutual aid kitchen that started out of Cal Anderson park! And of course they're still sweeping the tent camps regularly and seizing possessions even as we enter winter in a city with a breathtakingly high median cost of housing and a housing shortage and a large unhoused community! lolsobrage.
posted by kalimac at 7:29 AM on December 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


a lot of the people who do choose to sleep on the street are in their view doing it by choice (and, to be fair, often refuse alternative arrangements)

I am living in Santa Rosa, where the city or county (I forget which) is required (because they got sued and lost) to offer a "choice" before moving people along. If you're not in a high risk group for covid, the choice probably looks something like this:

Would you rather A) go camping in all weather maybe without decent gear where we say you aren't allowed (even though it's public land and there are all sorts of examples of permanent use of public land), and be seen by many (including possibly yourself) as "undesireable," and have to start over all the time, oh and good luck finding a toilet in the middle of the night or B) have, for example, a strict 6:30pm curfew, not have access to anything you didn't take with you after 8am, have to share the room where you're packed in with sardines with people who may snore super-loud, maybe have to do a chore chart like you're in kindergarten, you'd better be in peak mental health because you're not to expect any privacy. Oh, and we might drug test you. Try not to catch covid! Aren't you grateful for this opportunity? We got you some expired donuts.

I just don't see how they can call that a choice.
posted by aniola at 9:58 AM on December 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Note: I don't have experience with Santa Rosa shelters. I have volunteered & worked in shelters elsewhere on the west coast in the past.
posted by aniola at 10:00 AM on December 4, 2020


Chicago utilized hotels but only for people who qualified who were covid PUI or positive and not for the generalized homeless population.

They screened out 1) severe mental illness 2) criminal history 3) substance abuse problems regardless of severity 4) people who smoke. So the majority of the homeless population. They finally opened a shelter for some people in those groups when COVID positive but otherwise *shrugs* Supposedly were getting a better option next week, but it's still shelter and less actual hotel accommodations.

Ultimately they decreased shelter capasity and didn't offer any alternativesn during this crisis, and there are plenty of people who should be absolutely ashamed compared to what other cities accomplished during this time .
posted by AlexiaSky at 12:27 PM on December 4, 2020


What? Oh, no, no, no, the cops shut down the mutual aid kitchen that started out of Cal Anderson park! And of course they're still sweeping the tent camps regularly and seizing possessions even as we enter winter in a city with a breathtakingly high median cost of housing and a housing shortage and a large unhoused community! lolsobrage.

Not only that, but they waited until attention died down from the protests this summer/people got distracted by holiday things/etc to start hitting the camps super hard just within the past week... right as the weathers really and truly getting cold and awful

Their most recent onerous move is to declare a camp will be swept, but provide no date or time. Just “you’re on notice this will happen”. And now they want to reopen the parks by sweeping those camps, you know, in peak park season. The time of year when fountains/features are turned off, sports field lights don’t generally get turned on, everything is a mud pit. Yes, good weather park opening time

This year was I think the fourth time I’ve been homeless here, and the second time as an adult. I was fortunate to have places or situations to crash in(although sometimes it was... interesting) but many friends weren’t and... holy shit do I agree with the sentiment that at least in this city, a whole lot of people, especially those from a specific class background, were OVERJOYED at their chance to finally get to be cruel as fuck to homeless ppl with “morality” on their side

Weld park bathroom doors shut? Sure. Mace and beat people inside their own tents on camera? Go for it. Close literally every public bathroom and even every single one you could buy something then use? Sure. So so many things that seem like simple conveniences but were desperately important if u weren’t living in a house could finally get shut down bc of rona. Hell, let’s fence off tons of areas too

I’ve seen so much abject cruelty this year and I refuse to chalk it up to just corona response or “public safety”. There’s too much glee and zeal.

That video of the cops just wantonly beating the crap out of ppl in tents is permanently burned into my brain
posted by emptythought at 11:41 AM on December 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


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