
Naila Ebeid
Associate Advisor
This project was conducted in 2022-2023 in collaboration with the Directorate for Government Transformation (DITP). We assisted the DITP’s behavioural science department following a sollicitation from the French Interministerial Delegation for Access to Housing (DIHAL).
A “pension de famille” (“PF”) is a type of social housing in France, specifically designed for individuals facing social or psychological challenges and having limited access to conventional housing programmes. Unlike many other social housing solutions, residents can remain in their PF homes indefinitely. Despite significant government funding, the programme’s expansion faces several barriers : as of December 2022, only 72% of the projected 10 000 new PF spots that should have opened between 2017 and 2022 had actually opened.
The Délégation Interministérielle à l’Hébergement et à l’Accès au Logement (DIHAL) has pinpointed the reluctance of local authorities – particularly city mayors – as a major barrier ; their ultimate approval being an essential requirement for the establishment of new PFs (through the issuance of building permits, for example).
To better understand the barriers faced by local representatives, we conducted a mixed method study (using both qualitative and quantitative methods) involving city mayors as well as key actors in the social housing space (landlords, associations, real estate developers, etc.) to explore representatives’ knowledge of and attitudes towards PF, as well as their past experiences with this type of social housing.
Our research identified 3 key barriers for local representatives:
In light of these findings, several interventions seem promising to increase local representatives’ support of, and engagement with, PFs:
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