While the tensions in the housing market and the discontentment in the suburbs are being echoed more and more in the press, and while the DALO housing rights law has finally been obtained through pressure from associations, the housing question often remains a particularly complex and delicate issue to grasp in all its aspects (financial, property, technical, regulatory) and dimensions (urban planning, territorial, social, economic).

This study is particularly interested in the situation of people living in inadequate housing (3 million people today), all while taking cognisance of the housing crisis’ extension to the middle class. Thanks to an approach that is thematic (social housing, social support measures, accommodation and emergency drop-in structures...) as well as demographic (youth, disadvantaged people, students, ageing households...) in nature, it contributes to establishing the situation involving the various facets of France’s housing question.

It also summarises the legislative framework and its evolution (impact of decentralisation on housing for disadvantaged people, grounds of the Social Cohesion Plan...) and offers concerned professionals a body of knowledge that allows them to contextualise their practises or to impart a more strategic dimension to their interventions.

It is an indispensable tool for social workers, persons in charge of associations, territorial civil servants, project managers, and locally elected officials who intervene on housing questions and who are confronted with an increasingly critical situation on the ground.

Didier Varoni holds a Ph.D in economics and is the director of FORS-Recherche Sociale.

Christophe Robert holds a Ph.D in sociology and is the director of studies at the Fondation Abbé Pierre pour le logement des défavorisés.

They both intervene regularly in France’s housing crisis with social welfare professionals, persons in charge of associations, elected officials and national decision makers.