Homeless Camp near RER C and Place des martyrs

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While walking near La place des Martyrs-Juifs-du-Vélodrome-d’Hiver est near what I think must be RER C and the Bir-Hakeim bridge yesterday, my friend came upon a very unique homeless "village" that quite intrigued him. It was located about fifteen feet below the level of the monument and shared a part of the railroad structure as the grounds of the camp. There was a crudely built hut with cardboard and plastic siding and (maybe) a tar paper roof. It also had a large sectional sofa with a single bed sized matress on top. What intrigued my friend the most was the heavy duty industrial cooking range that looked like it was being put to use (maybe with a propane bottle). The camp is behind a steel picket railroad fence and is very well protected. My friend, who teaches high school humanities, was really sorry he did not have his camera. He and his wife have been collecting photos and stories while in France (she teaches high school French and is French herself), and I told him I would post here to see if any of you Paris folks know more about the camp.

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I haven't heard about that camp, but unfortunately shantytowns are returning to Paris. Most of them are along the périphérique in various nooks and crannies. I have been intrigued by one near where I live at Porte d'Aubervilliers, but I have not found a way to photograph it discreetly. Most of these places are gypsy camps with Romanians and Bulgarians, but there are some others with Afghans, Iraqis and North Africans.

I am hoping the our brand new government will find a solution for this humanitarian problem. However, I am a bit doubtful.

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Thank you so much for the response, Kerouac. This was the middle of the day and the camp was not occupied. If he had his camera along, my friend (who is very sensitive to the plight of the disenfranchised and down trodden) would have been able to take a photo to share with his students in their studies of human living conditions. The camp is ingeniously placed and seemed more well stocked than many other camps he has seen. How they got that industrial sized stove over a fence and fifteen feet down A homemade ladder to the railroad bed (maybe through the railroad tunnel? I hope not.) was a real puzzle.

[bixaorellana]

That is intriguing! I hope your friend has a chance at another stroll in that region. Obviously pictures would be great, but in this case, a chance to talk to the inhabitants of the camp would be even better.

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Unfortunately, my friends left Paris today. I'm going to have to decide if I want to go down there myself. Its a little out of my comfort zone, but I will certainly let you know if I decide to make the trip.

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I took my camera and went in search of the camp today. As I walked west on the Promenade past the Pont d'Iena there were lots of tourists around at first. About the time two gendarmes on bicycles passed me I realized there were approximately 25 people sitting ahead of me who definitely were not tourists: men, women, and children of all ages. Some were sitting on benches while several others were lying on the grass and appeared to be sleeping along the promenade. I am not a good judge of nationality, but these folks resembled some Iraqis I know.

I was interested to watch the policemen as they proceeded, as i wasnt quite sure what they were going to do. They first went to a gentleman who didn't appear to be with the group and asked so see some identification, which was produced. As this was happening the group began to move westward down the path. Those sleeping got up and they all walked together heading west. The police continued to follow along behind and I had the sense of "herding," though of people. I could only assume the police knew these were illegals, but they gave them the opportunity to move on and to eventually leave the area.

Father down, past the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, I crossed onto the path leading to the Place des Martyrs Juifs du Vélodrome d'Hiver, the monument is built on the site of the former train station were 13,000 Jews were shipped to camps at Drancy and, later, Auschwitz. At this point, I believe I was standing on a tunnel that goes over RER C. Following my friend's directions, I walked on west past the memorial and, at the end of the pathway I found the camp.

I kept my distance a bit as I believed the camp was occupied, and indeed, a man and a woman climbed over the fence and walked past me down the path. The camp was situated on a concrete pad that is part of the railway, but was not that far below the upper path where I was standing. Perhaps ten feet down. I saw the sofa with a single mattress for a seat, some sort of a rudimentary building, and lots of collected stuff. I was unable to see the large stove though. The space cannot be more than fifteen by twenty feet and I am wondering if it may be the home of the large group I saw on the promenade. A sad existence for whoever does live there.

I did manage to take several photos of the monument, path, and the compound, so I will try to upload a few once I return to the US. I did look on google maps and coild see the empty area very clearly, so perhaps this camp is not very old.

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In a similar vein, although this does not concern refugees but "merely" the homeless, there have been articles in recent days about the giant renovation works at Les Halles. Besides completely redoing the park and the shopping mall, they are also doing all sorts of things in the underground road networks under Les Halles. And the problem is that more than 50 people live in those tunnels, just like the subway tunnel dwellers in NYC and the people living in the storm sewers in Las Vegas. And probably thousands of others in other underground urban networks full of nooks and crannies, abandoned dead ends and forgotten passages.

I have seen them for years -- well at least a few of them -- driving through those tunnels on my way somewhere else. You see the filthy sleeping bags against the walls and the cardboard constructions in the shadows and all you really think (in my case) is "it's warmer down there than out in the open and there is no risk of rain." The conditions are abominable, but I know that they are not forced to live there because social services have solutions for them -- but they usually don't want social services -- they just want to be left alone.

Well, the thing is, the work on the tunnels is ahead of schedule, and they needed to get those people out of there. The majority were informed and moved, but there were still about 17 people to get out of there this week. Frankly, I am impressed by social services, because the article said that the city is paying for 14 days of hotel accommodation for them (would you want to be the next guest in the hotel?), and then they will try to move them into less precarious accommodations -- if they accept it. Probably they will prefer to live out on the street since it is summer.

Oh, it is so odd to think about all of this when one has a normal dwelling, enough money to live and no major addictions to nourish.

[bixaorellana]

I was practically holding my breath as I read your account, Htmb. Really, the feeling of your close observation & the need to remain unobtrusive almost had me hearing your narration, in the hushed tones of a golf tournament announcer.

Am really looking forward to the pictures. Was the "rudimentary building" something manufactured, like some kind of shed, or something put together by the people who use the camp, do you think? Perhaps it now houses the stove? I wonder if they've organized their own soup kitchen there.

Very interesting and, as Kerouac said, almost impossible to imagine as I sit here in a normal house.

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Bixa, the structure didn't seem to be very substantial and was pit together with bits of cardboard, plastic sheeting, twine and some sort of metal the best I could tell. The whole area is protected on two sides by the concrete walls of the train tunnel and by chain link fence on the other two sides.

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[bixaorellana]

Wonderful irony, showing that first picture in #9 in this thread, Htmb!

That "structure" is flimsier than I'd imagined. It's actually a form of tent, isn't it?

Those spots of neon yellow -- are they the vests of the railroad guards?

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It's actually a yellow sack with black handles. If you look carefully in picture three you can see the train and how incredibly close it comes.

There were several colorful plastic chairs, as well as rugs/blankets and clothes hanging to dry. I can also see a large bottle of water. I just couldn't get and closer so I could photograph the items my friend had seen earlier.

The memorial is to the east of the compound and is separated by grass, a hedge, and more grass which you can see in the first and last photos.

Ironic? Yes, very much so.

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The original post in this thread was one of my very first posts on AnyPort. I wonder if this is still an active campsite,

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I haven't been by there for a few months, but it was still there the last time my RER passed by. This winter there were quite a few big fires in Roma camps in the suburbs. I am not sure that all of them were accidental, but they very well may have been considering how cold it was this winter and the squalid hovels in which these people have to live.