Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said that she intends to open winter shelters for homeless people in municipal centers of the French capital, including l'Hotel de Ville which houses the city's local administration.
Hidalgo told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper that the city needed some 3,000 additional emergency accommodation places.
"We could use empty buildings, and we are also going to open municipal centers [for homeless]. L'Hotel de Ville in Paris should set an example and demonstrate that it is possible to shelter homeless people everywhere," the mayor said. According to Hidalgo, L'Hotel de Ville will open its doors to homeless women starting from late November.
The European Federation of National Organizations Working with the Homeless (Feantsa) said in a report last year that homelessness and housing issues have reached the crisis point in all EU countries.
In particular, the number of homeless people in Austria increased by 28 percent between 2008 and 2014, in France their number increased by 50 percent during the period from 2001 to 2012, while in Germany the increase amounted to 35 percent between 2012 and 2014.
