Solidarity Factory (PAR0006)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?

While Paris has 21,000 places of accommodation for homeless, open year-round, the two editions of
the solidarity night, organized by the City of Paris to count, on a given night, people homeless, and
better knowing their backgrounds and needs, showed that more than 3,600 people were sleeping on
the streets.

These situations of great precariousness cover different realities: isolated people, mostly middleaged men, although the proportion of women has increased in recent years, people coming to Paris
for refuge, families, poor workers, etc.

Similarly, the individual trajectories that lead to these street situations are diverse: in addition to the
migratory routes and the consequences of the economic crisis (over-indebtedness, loss of
employment or housing), personal disruptions (accident of life). , separation, death, sickness ...) or even out of institutions unaccompanied by durable social and professional integration solutions
(prison, hospital, child welfare, etc.) can lead to the street.

The efforts made by all the stakeholders are considerable and contribute to make Paris a City of
solidarity. The Paris area thus has many structures, and the resources mobilized by all partners have
steadily increased in recent years.

For example, the city of Paris concentrates nearly 30% of the Ile-de-France accommodation places,
created and financed by the state, while it represents 1% of the Ile-de-France territory; the Paris
social services make the fight against the big exclusion one of their priorities; Paris is one of the
territories on which the associative network is the richest. However, the increase of needs is
indisputable. The field actors do the double observation of the diversity of profiles encountered, but
also the accumulation of difficulties that the chronicity of street situations worsens.

What is the commitment?

Solidarity is the foundation of our world-city. The Mayor of Paris has made the fight against exclusion
the Great cause of his term. A Pact to fight against exclusion was signed in 2015 and brings together
institutions, associations and Parisians. Action 101 of the Pact plans in particular to "promote civic
engagement and to make known to Parisians the opportunities to engage existing on the
territory". The Solidarity Factory was born following the two editions of the solidarity night, in 2018 and 2019,
during which more than 350 teams, composed of a professional social worker and volunteers, traveled the streets of the capital to go to meet the homeless sleeping in the public space, in railway
stations, metro stations, etc.

During these two nights of Solidarity, citizen mobilization was fast and widespread. More than 3500
Parisians and residents of nearby communes answered present and asked to continue this
commitment throughout the year.
In order to respond to this desire of citizens to commit to homeless people, the Mayor of Paris has
decided to give them the keys to invest in the fight against the great exclusion, Great cause of the
mandate.

In 2018, this Solidarity Factory project was co-built with Parisians and associations fighting against
exclusion, during four workshops organized in June and September, which brought together more
than 200 Parisians, including homeless people. The very name was chosen during a workshop of
ideation with the Parisians.

The missions of the solidarity factory that are spreading gradually are as follows:

1. Train and inform Parisians who wish to act for and with homeless people
- Make accessible to the greatest number of information on existing devices developed by the
City of Paris and its partners (luggage stores, public baths, places of food distribution, social
services and care, etc.)
- Animate a community of Solidarity Volunteers trained and ready to act alongside homeless
people
- Acting in conviviality: a solidarity café managed by a social reintegration association through
economic activity, a space for reading, meetings and debates.

2. Developing citizen and solidarity projects
- A solidarity incubator to support projects with and for homeless people
- A solidarity chain to coordinate the involvement of citizens with homeless people: support for
the organization of collections and events for the general public.
- A crossroads of solidarity to facilitate meetings between citizens, associations and institutions:
place of debate and exchange, provision of rooms for associative permanence and / or meetings
for the general public.

3. Solidarity in creation: to make culture a vector of information with a cultural program around
solidarity and a lever of emancipation and expression for accompanied people.
The Factory of Solidarity is attached to the Social Action Center of the City of Paris.

How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?

The "Volunteers of Solidarity", trained at the Factory of Solidarity, will be able to engage in field
actions proposed by the associations.

This commitment will also allow, through awareness and training, to create more solidarity on a daily
basis from citizens to people in street situations: another way to fight exclusion by recreating social
bonds.

Why is the commitment relevant to OGP values?

This commitment:
• Facilitates access to information. This information was already public, but scattered and little
known. The training not only allows citizens to know the information, but also to better
understand how to use it.
• Gives citizens the opportunity to engage with the community on the topic of solidarity. To
become a player in the fight against exclusion.
• Associates citizens in the definition of actions where they wish to be involved
Also, it seems to us to answer the values of commitment and transparency of the OGP.

Additional information:

Information about the 2019 night of solidarity :
https://www.paris.fr/nuitdelasolidarite#comment-s-est-deroulee-la-nuit-de-la-solidarite-dujeudi-7-fevrier-2019_26
https://www.paris.fr/actualites/nuit-de-la-solidarite-retour-en-images-6479
Paris Pact to fight against exclusion: https://presse.paris.fr/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Pacte-parisien-de-lutte-contre-la-grande-exclusion-2015-2020.pdf
Training program of the Factory of Solidarity: https://www.paris.fr/actualites/la-fabrique-dela-solidarite-6389
And on social networks: https://www.facebook.com/lafabriquedelasolidarite/