Sunday, November 23, 2008
When I began this blog last September, it was just to describe what the three of us were living from one day to the next. I originally planned to send a letter each week to Daniel Vaillant [mayor of Paris’s eighteenth arrondissement] to describe to him in concrete terms what it’s like to be homeless, because I had the impression that, at the mayor’s office, they simply had no idea. And then I told myself that this exchange of letters … would end up in a pile of files. I thought that [by sending them in quantity] I would be more likely to receive an answer from the mayor’s office … It was my brother who suggested that I write a blog about my situation. I hesitated, I wasn’t sure that I wanted everyone to read my life … And I couldn’t at all see how people would even come across it … I was far from imagining the scope it would assume!
I have to say that I’ve felt really beside myself in these last days. I needed to step back a bit. I received so many messages of support, suggestions, offers of help, advice, encouragement! People have offered temporary shelter, help with moving, little tips to make the children feel good, gifts of clothing. People have even offered to take care of the children! People have written to me from all over the world, men and women from every social class, parents or nonparents, former homeless people, grandfathers and grandmothers, students, even adolescents who have said, “I’m only twelve years old but I find it revolting [that you can’t find affordable housing].” I would really like to be able to thank all of you. It’s incredible that so many people are touched by our circumstances. You can’t imagine how comforting it is to know that we are not all alone!
I also received a lot of other offers from the press, radio, and television. For now, I’d prefer not to follow up. My priority right now is to find a place to live and to take care of my children. I began this blog with that urgent goal and I’m going to continue, but I don’t have time to do more than that, and I don’t want to expose us [to the public eye] any further. Some people wanted to make me into a kind of oracle for the homeless. But I don’t see myself in this role. I don’t have the soul of a spokesperson, that’s not me at all. Of course, I would like what’s going on now to be useful to those who, like us, need a roof. But everything I can do, I’m doing through this blog. A few publishers have even suggested that I write a book! That really made me laugh—it’s a bit much.
On the other hand, I did agree to meet a journalist from a show called Arrêt sur images, which airs on the Internet, but it was for a written article that appeared on their site. Their approach is different. The article talks of the solidarity that was created by the “blogging mothers” and attempts to trace how that movement was formed. I swear I was interested in understanding it myself! What was funny was that the journalist found the first person to link my blog to hers (called La mare enchantée), and it turns out that I know her very well, but she hadn’t let me know what she was up to. If this turns out to be true, then everything has happened because of her …
I also saw that there has been some debate on that blog and apparently elsewhere. I suspect that this is inevitable when one is the subject of an article that’s at once personal and public. I don’t need to respond to this often badly informed criticism, but I do want to clarify two or three things that might have been ambiguous in the article about us in Le Monde.
First of all, the article leads you to believe that I had a “job” in Bordeaux that I had left to come to Paris. In reality, I was training at a stable, and we had one week of school for every two weeks of internship. I worked like this in the stables for four years without being paid. When I left Bordeaux, ten years ago now, it was at the end of my training and I had no work. When I arrived in Paris, I began to earn a living doing parttime jobs.
In addition, when it comes to Madiop, the father of my children, I don’t want people to think that he’s absent, negligent, or irresponsible. We are separated but we remain close and we respect each other a lot. He’s not able to help us financially at the moment, but whenever he can, he’s there for the children. I sometimes leave work late, and he’s the one who goes to pick up Jules at school and Orphée at preschool, and he cares for them regularly in the evening.
Finally, I want to answer the many people who advise me to leave Paris for the suburbs or the provinces. If I don’t do it, it’s not out of stubbornness. It’s that it’s out of the question: My whole life is here. My work is here, the father of my children is here, my brother is here, my friends are here, Jules’s school is here, all of his friends are here, Orphée’s preschool is here … If I leave Paris, I’ll have nothing left. I want to stay in Paris because now it’s my home, that’s all. I don’t want it to be a luxury reserved for rich people. I think that everyone should be free to live where they want, no matter what their income might be.
I see that Mr. Vaillant left a comment on my blog on Thursday evening! I thank him a lot for this answer, which I read attentively. I have no doubt that he and his team are doing their best to solve the problem of housing in the eighteenth arrondissement. I want to assure him that I never thought that all this publicity would bring me subsidized housing right away. It would be too easy if you had only to be in a newspaper for everything to fall into place!
I’m not asking for favored treatment. I’m very conscious of how many urgent problems the mayor’s office must have, but there is a real problem here and I’m part of it.
If I can give my opinion, I find it depressing that politicians always answer with, “We can’t do any more …” I don’t know what politicians would have to do to solve the housing problem, but it’s up to them to know, not me! If they agree that it’s not right that dozens of families live in the street, if they agree that cases like ours aren’t isolated ones but add up to a real social problem, then it’s their job to find solutions, no?
Mr. Vaillant, you’re certainly right to remember that rules are rules and that they’re the same for everyone. I very much agree. But don’t forget that you’re the one who makes the rules! It’s your responsibility to decide to build more subsidized housing, to decide if it’s better to give it to the poorest people or to the middle class, to decide if people whose incomes are above the set limits should still be allowed to live in housing projects or if there should be more movement … I understand it when my social worker tells me he can’t do anything more, because I know that his ability to act is limited by choices that have been made by elected officials. But you, you should not be able to say such a thing because, as a politician, it’s your job to find solutions to problems, no? It’s difficult, I’m sure, but it’s your job and you’ve chosen it.
My own job, at my low level, is to explain the situation to you so that you can better understand how homeless people live and you can better respond to their problems. That’s why I began this blog. Others react differently, they agitate or demonstrate; I do what I can with this blog. Even if it changes the politics of housing slightly, it won’t have served for nothing.
As for emergency accommodations, such as hotels, it’s true that I didn’t accept this help from social services. Mr. Kossi, to whom I was assigned, also insisted on this, but hotels are very expensive, even with financial assistance. You can’t live in one from day to day the way you can in an apartment (you can’t cook, the toilets are often in the hallway …). And I know so many families that have been in them for years …
For the moment, I’ve had no news about project housing, and life is continuing as it was.
On Monday, I finally found a free moment to go to the basement storage area where Jules’s outgrown clothes, which I’d like to use for Orphée, are stored. I was totally happy when I got there. I overcame my phobia of the dark to find the light at the end of the basement, then opened the door that I’d last closed several months before. I’d never been back since and didn’t remember how we had arranged things inside. It was a veritable Tetris in 3-D! Everything was piled up from floor to ceiling—I hadn’t imagined when I stored these things that I might need to take just a few at once—with the result that I didn’t find anything. I closed the door, turned out the light, and left with some bitterness. That evening, when I told Emmanuelle of my disappointment, she immediately got up, went to a closet, and took out lots of clothes that had belonged to her daughters, were now too small, and could also work well for boys!
We didn’t have to move last weekend and, suddenly, we could enjoy our days. We went to the park to meet friends, and since our children are the same age, and since they’re little guys, they played soccer. It may seem boring, but these are just moments of joy.
We’re leaving Emmanuelle’s apartment in several days. I’m very grateful to her, not just for her welcoming attitude, but because we really got to know each other well. She and her daughters didn’t go away on vacation, finally. Léah was very sick and in no condition to travel. As a result, we spent a lot of time together. The advantage of living through difficult times is that it makes you stronger and you meet amazing people.
This time, I’m going to sublet an apartment for a month. We’re going to stay in the neighborhood one more time, between the jardin d’ Éole and rue Marx Dormoy. I hope that this will be the last, that afterward we’ll have an apartment of our own.
Translated from the French by Penelope Rowlands