Irina Baranovska, who lives with her 6-year-old son, was overwhelmed when she handed AFP the letter she received in mid-September from the Departmental Union of Family Associations (Udaf). The mail asks her to vacate the three-room apartment she occupies in Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle).
“He was retained with the services of the DDET (Departmental Directorate of Employment, Labor and Solidarity) that you have not respected your obligations” linked to the sublease contract for the apartment, it is indicated. Like Irina and her son, in the department, several Ukrainian refugees were ordered to leave their homes.
The sublease contracts cited were created under a rental intermediation system from March 2022 to house those who arrived in France after the Russian invasion. According to the Udaf letter, however, “all the necessary steps for professional integration and empowerment have not been sufficiently carried out in order to enroll you in a path of overall integration in the territory”.
“It doesn’t make any sense”
Irina Baranovska, who had “with difficulty” started learning French upon her arrival in Lorraine in 2022, is now easily understood. His son, at school, was even disappointed to be on school vacation for All Saints’ Day. “There are plenty of children who don’t like school, he loves it,” assures his mother.
She herself has worked after his arrival in France, to do housework and in the catering industry, when they were accommodated with a host family and the latter could keep their son. Now, “I get offered work early in the morning or late at night, but I can’t leave my 6-year-old son alone,” she says.
In Ukraine, she was a sales analyst in a factory. She does not currently have a job but says she is actively looking for one. “For the Ukrainians, for me, for people like us who received the letter, it makes no sense, because everyone is trying to find a solution,” she added. “Why is this happening to us and why are we pretending we are not doing anything? »
Serhii is “afraid of ending up on the street with his child”
The document instructs him to leave his apartment no later than November 15 and to “find a personal rehousing solution”. But the young mother has no solution. If she had been alone, she would have back “home” in Kharkiv. But the town is in the grip of fighting, and she wants “the best” for her son.
A few kilometers away, in Jarville-la-Malgrange, Serhii Kochetkov and his 17-year-old daughter have already put their belongings in boxes. They received the same letter, and should have left their accommodation on October 18. But they were not present for the inventory. They too are incomprehensible. Oleksandra learns French and attends a high school in the area. She wants to “continue her studies in France”where she feels good.
And impossible to return to the country. They come from Zaporizhzhia, close to the front line. Serhii is “afraid of ending up on the street with his child”, whom he is raising alone. A truck driver for 38 years, he was unable to find work in France, even if he hopes that a training offer will materialize. In the meantime, there is only a table and four chairs left in his living room.
“No end of support as of October 31, 2024”
“There will be no end of care (for these families) on October 31, 2024,” assured the prefecture of Meurthe-et-Moselle in a press release, while recalling “the objective of deceleration of measures of rental intermediation (IML)”. Currently, “less than 600 people” are housed under this system, while nearly 1,600 people have been accommodated in the department, according to state services, which advocate finding solutions on a case-by-case basis to the people concerned.
The “Lights of Ukraine” association has identified between 60 and 70 families ordered to leave their homes in the near future. “They had been stabilized in France” for a few months, “and suddenly, bam, the letter falls” and upsets their balance, regrets the president of the association, Roman Filinyuk.
The case of Meurthe-et-Moselle seems unique, according to feedback from several organizations contacted by AFP. “A gradual decline” in the use of the system has, however, been announced over the past year by the State, according to Juliette Laganier of the Soliha federation, one of the main players in housing assistance. Without a timetable having been communicated.