France's homeless

NYT, November 10, 1993
ALAN RIDING

After a chilly night huddled in blankets outside the Musee d'Orsay, Georges was up with the sun and ready for a morning's work selling Macadam Journal at an open-air market near the Seine in Paris's elegant 16th arrondissement. By noon, he had earned enough for a good lunch.

"It has made a big difference for me," he said, nodding toward the tabloid newspaper "for the homeless" that he was holding out to passers-by. "I can stay in a small hotel one night out of three, but at least I'm well fed now. And I have saved a bit of money."

A hundred yards away, past stalls weighed down with the best meat, fish, vegetables, pates and cheeses that France can offer, Raymond, a slightly unshaven man in his mid-30's, called out softly, "Macadam Journal, the paper of the S.D.F." -- the French initials for "Sans Domicile Fixe," or "No Fixed Address."

"I lost my job last year because of the economic crisis, then things fell apart in my life," he said unapologetically. "But for the past three months I have been doing this and things are looking up. Someone I met selling the paper even offered me a free room."

When Macadam Journal appeared in May, the founders made no claim to originality. Street News in New York and The Big Issue in London both served as inspirations for the new monthly. A Growing Phenomenon
But the appearance of a street people's newspaper here -- it takes its name from the word used to describe the surface of a road -- is itself confirmation that Paris is beginning to experience social problems long familiar to New York and London. Paris may have always had wine-swilling "clochards" living under its bridges, but the notion of homeless is relatively new here.

The dimensions of the problem are hard to measure. Private associations supporting the homeless estimate that half a million people live in inadequate housing in France, while Government officials put the number of people without a permanent home at about 200,000. What no one disputes is that the phenomenon is growing and that, in Paris at least, the sight of homeless people sleeping in doorways no longer causes surprise.

As winter approaches, both Government and charitable organizations are hurriedly preparing centers that offer a bed and a meal for the homeless. Transportation officials have also set up relief programs to prevent train stations, the subway and airports from becoming improvised shelters from the cold.

But with unemployment now standing at 3.2 million, or 11.8 percent of the work force, and still rising, the underlying causes of the problem remain. Men -- and some women -- lose their jobs, their unemployment benefits run out, they can no longer afford to pay rents and they end up on the streets.

More than for the tramps, drug addicts and the new influx of Romanian Gypsies who try to survive by begging and often upset the public with their fierce panhandling approach, Macadam Journal is intended mainly for those homeless people who are victims of temporary misfortune but who still hope to resume normal lives. Falling on Hard Times
"We don't deal with clochards," Leila Khallouki, the paper's communications director, said. "We're looking for the new S.D.F. We have some 600 vendors, and 90 percent of them have suffered some accident -- in their lives, families, health or jobs -- that has put them on the streets."

Gerard -- a 36-year-old former businessman who, like others, asked that his full name not be used -- said he lost all his savings when 11 cars that he had exported to Poland were seized in a dispute over customs payments. "I had to leave my apartment and move into a hotel that I pay for daily," he said.

Since July, though, he has been selling Macadam Journal, and he boasts that he was able to save enough to take two children from a broken marriage to Eurodisney. "They don't know what I do because I always appear in jacket and tie," he said.

The newspaper sells on the street for 10 francs, or $1.69, of which the vendor keeps 6 francs, or $1.02. Olivier, who arrived at the monthly's depot in Aubervilliers outside Paris with his 18-month-old girl, Marianne, asserted that he sold 200 copies one Saturday, probably a record. Olivier admitted sheepishly that sales were better when he carried Marianne.

But even with one vendor's daily sales averaging, say, 50 copies, they can still earn around $400 a week, enough to pay for a small hotel and simple meals. "It gives us a chance," Gerard said. "My aim is to come here one day and say, thank you, Martine, I'm not going to sell Macadam Journal anymore."

An Extraordinary Success

Martine Vanden Driessche is editor of the paper, but it is the brainchild of Jacques Chamut, a Belgian businessman who decided that there was a need for a French-language version of The Big Issue, for sale not only in Paris and Brussels but also in other French and Belgian cities where homeless are now appearing.

Written by professional journalists, the 24-page monthly tackles broad social issues for the general reader. And whether people buy it out of sympathy for the vendors or out of interest in its contents, its success has been extraordinary. Its first issue sold 100,000 copies, its fourth 400,000.

Indeed, its example is already being followed. One of its former vendors, Georges Mathis, has founded La Reverbere, which is written by homeless people and is backed by several neighborhood associations. A bimonthly glossy, La Rue, is now also sold by homeless.

For the homeless vendors, who are required to dress as well as possible and are urged to avoid "aggressive" sales tactics, what matters most is that they have recovered some dignity. And at least Macadam Journal has now become a symbol of respectability that seems to reassure the general public.

"What I most like is that people come up to chat," Georges said as he awaited a sale beside a vegetable stall in the 16th arrondissement market. "They want to help people who want to help themselves. If I'm not seen for a few days, they ask, What happened? Are you all right? In the past, they would look the other way."