Reunion's shelter system fails 1,700 children; emergency housing crisis deepens

1,700 children on Reunion called the national emergency line 115 in 2025 and received no shelter in response. That number, drawn from the annual investigation run jointly by the Federation of Solidarity Actors and UNICEF France since 2017, puts a concrete figure on what the island’s housing system is failing to deliver.

The recorded total almost certainly understates the real shortfall. Many families cannot get through to 115 or give up trying. Unaccompanied minors sleeping rough and households in squats or informal settlements go uncounted entirely. Across France as a whole, the number of children without housing has risen 42 percent since 2017, even as the government set a formal target of “zero children on the streets” by 2022. That deadline passed unmet, on Reunion and on the mainland alike.

Additional reference context is available at https://la1ere.franceinfo.fr/reunion/1-700-enfants-ont-ete-sans-toit-a-la-reunion-en-2025-personne-n-est-a-l-abri-d-un-accident-de-la-vie-1732802.html.

Kamala Tacoun, regional delegate of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, appeared on Reunion La 1ère television and radio to describe who these children are. The answer, she said, is that no single profile applies. “This can affect absolutely everyone, and no one is safe from life’s accidents.” The children without shelter come from the island’s main population centers, including Saint-Denis, Saint-Paul, Le Port, Le Tampon, and Saint-Pierre, a distribution that reflects where people live rather than any particular pattern of vulnerability.

The route into homelessness typically follows what Tacoun calls an “accumulation of difficulties.” Housing costs take a growing share of household income, leaving families with almost no margin when something goes wrong. “A family that devotes an increasingly large portion of its income to housing is a family with less margin to face life’s accidents: job loss, separation, health concerns, unexpected debt.” One setback compounds another, and the path from financial strain to emergency housing to the street can be short.

For children, the consequences reach across every dimension of daily life. Tacoun warned that instability damages physical health, mental health, nutrition, and sleep, while pulling children out of school. “All of this creates conditions that are truly terrible for the children,” she said.

Meanwhile, the structural gap in housing supply makes the problem harder to close with each passing year. Research by INSEE, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, conducted for the Regional Directorate of Environment, Planning and Housing, found that Reunion needs more than 172,000 additional housing units by 2050, equivalent to 5,000 to 6,000 units built annually. Current production runs below 2,000 units per year. That gap between what is needed and what is being built is the operational core of the crisis.

Tacoun laid out what closing it would require: more emergency shelter capacity, construction of housing matched to family size and income, greater use of private housing stock, and effective deployment of rent controls. None of these are new ideas. The question is whether they move from policy discussion to actual delivery.

The Federation of Solidarity Actors and UNICEF France plan to keep the pressure on as budget debates approach. Tacoun called directly on parliamentarians and senators to put childhood and family issues at the center of upcoming legislative sessions. “Today in Reunion, we have 1,700 reasons to do more and do it faster.”

Whether that argument shifts budget priorities in time to affect the next construction cycle, and the next count of children without shelter, remains to be seen.