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Seine-Saint-Denis Office
The Games raised billions to rebuild this Parisian suburb. What will the thousands of homeless people who live there do?
By Sara Hurtes
Sarah Hurtes visited several of the remaining occupied houses in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
The building, which was once a warehouse, apartments and offices, is a transitional house – with a shower – for 60 adults and youth. On the floor, rats run under plastic chairs and parked strollers. The stench of damp clothes and clogged bathrooms predominates. the strong smells of tomatoes and spices coming from the makeshift kitchens on the upper floors. In the inner courtyard, laughter echoes as young people pick up the laughing little ones and swing them gently toward the sky.
It’s a so-called squat in Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb east of Paris that was once a shopping district. Today, it’s a position populated by trendy cafes and haute couture houses, as well as factories and deserted spaces like the warehouse, which houses unauthorized housing for homeless people and immigrants.
Mariam Komara, 40, an undocumented immigrant from Côte d’Ivoire, has lived there since last year. The other day he was in a position to go to court to argue that he had the right to stay.
“It may not be the ideal position, but it’s the most productive position I have and it’s a sleeping position,” he said recently.
Soon, however, Seine-Saint-Denis will be the center of the Paris Olympics (with hotels for thousands of athletes in the nearby Olympic Village) and floor 0 of one of France’s central dilemmas.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived in France in recent years, and nowhere is this more true than in this uncomfortable suburb located in the shadow of the City of Light. About a third of Seine-Saint-Denis’ more than 1. 6 million people are immigrants, the highest in the country. This influx has put pressure on the housing inventory and the government.
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