Is Les Grand Voisins truly grand? Or truly grand propaganda?
Earlier this month, our class visited Les Grands Voisins (“The Grand Neighbors”), a two-year project providing temporary housing for 600 of Paris’s homeless and reduced rent to associations with a stated social mission. These are some of my thoughts on the experience.
There is an invisible line that divides Les Grands Voisins. No sign signals its existence, yet the line is rarely crossed. Its existence, despite its invisibility, is obvious.
Evidence for the existence of a spatial divide is both anecdotal and quantitative. The public area of Les Grands Voisins is located right next to the entrance. It features La Lingerie, a restaurant and bar with patio seating. Occasionally, a resident or activist will stroll through the public area, the latter group distinguishable by their neon vests, but the only people who linger are members of the public. There is a stark racial divide between the residents (exclusively black) and the public (exclusively white).
In eighteen minutes of still observation from the yellow dot on the below map, 86 people walked through this intersection (4.8 per minute). The majority of those people, 55%, were white.
Both the atmosphere and demographics change when one walks further into Les Grands Voisins. The area is quieter and groups of residents sit chatting in the shade as activists paint, build, and construct sun reflectors out of aluminum foil. In eleven minutes of still observation from the blue dot on the above map, 17 people walked by (1.5 per minute). The majority of those people, 76%, were black.
We can extrapolate from the drastic changes in traffic and demographics that the public does not venture away from the areas highlighted in yellow on the above map and that a spatial divide exists around the intersection of Lelong, Pinard, and Pierre Petit. It is fair, then, to say that the public’s primary motivation for visiting Les Grands Voisins is to enjoy food and drink with friends rather than to create neighborly goodwill towards the city’s disenfranchised.
Grand neighbors connect over more than shared space. They connect over shared experience. In order for Les Grands Voisins to live up to its lofty name, it must facilitate more links between the public and the mission of the project.
Les Grands Voisins lies in a complex that once housed the beloved children’s hospital, Hôpital Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Signs of the building’s past litter the premises, sometimes literally. There is an obvious analogy between a hospital’s function in society and the function Les Grands Voisins hopes to fulfill in Paris. In a hospital, people arrive ill, are treated by physicians, and, ideally, return to society as healthy, productive citizens. In Les Grands Voisins, people arrive homeless, are given housing in proximity to associations that specialize in reintegration, and, ideally, enter society as healthy, productive citizens.
But this, so far, has not been the case. In 10 months, only 10 of the 600 residents have attended a workshop, according to a teacher at Le Petit Debrouillard, an association that aims to make science fun and accessible for children. When one resident was asked if he had attended any of the workshops, he responded by saying that, while the workshops were interesting, they were not helpful to his mission of finding a job.
This is a damning statement.
Aurore, the association managing Les Grands Voisins, currently does not solicit feedback from residents in order to avoid invading the residents’ privacy. While the sentiment may be noble, an extended lack of engagement is a sign of a serious methodological problem and the decision not to seek an answer risks the effectiveness of this initiative and any similar initiatives that may follow. It also overlooks two massive issues: first, that the perspective of the privileged is often blinded to the necessities of the disenfranchised. Second, that members of the homeless population may be too traumatized from previous encounters with citizens to feel safe asking for help.
Privilege is blinding. What someone who comes from privilege may take as common sense may be a revelation for someone who has been outside the system. For someone in privilege, professionalism might begin with ensuring every email received is replied to within 24 hours, updating a LinkedIn page, or formatting a resumé. A disenfranchised individual may not know how to type, may not have an email address or LinkedIn account, or may not know when to call a physician. It is a strong possibility that the residents’ lack of engagement with the associations in Les Grands Voisins is because the associations are not offering information and training on what the resident’s need to know.
It must also be understood that it may take time for residents to feel comfortable being vulnerable enough to communicate their needs. After all, from their perspective, Paris is the city of people who walk by them, verbally assault them, physically abuse them, leave them alone and shivering on a cold winter’s night, and ignore their pleas for even the smallest amounts of money in your pocket. It is the city of people who chose not to come to their assistance when they lived under unspeakably inhumane rulers. It is the city of people whose status in the world was enhanced due to the colonization and exploitation of lands all over the world. In the eyes of the disenfranchised, the legacy of France rests not in food, literature, fashion, art, or the Revolution, but in the disinterest towards their tribulations that they experienced at the hands of many.
But, if Les Grands Voisins is to maximize its positive impact, the organizers cannot be disheartened by failed attempts to include the residents in determining the programming strategy. If they are, Les Grands Voisins will never be anything more than what it currently is: a temporary housing solution that serves as a trendy piece of propaganda for the city of Paris and a way for the wealthy Parisian public to convince themselves that drinking beers makes them part of the solution.
