Surprising Europe

Surprising Europe

Housing Conditions

As the Eurasian primary destination for immigration, Europe finds itself swarmed with hordes of illegal

African migrants desperately searching for living conditions. Unfortunately, those people are often exploited not only in terms of work, but also when it comes to housing conditions. Sometimes they even end up in a worse situation than in their home countries, because after destroying their papers, to avoid deportation, they are no longer protected by any national law. This is best shown in the example of Paris, one of Europe’s biggest melting pots, where almost 90% of the African immigrants occupy unsafe buildings. It is common for up to three people to live in an apartment of no more than 10m², that is approximately the size of a below average bathroom, without radiator or access to hot water. Despite these

unsanitary circumstances the rents continue to increase. Apart from that, the majority of these buildings show incredible deficiencies in the construction. Such as, dilapidated structures missing fire extinguishers and the complete absence of smoke detectors or emergency exits. More than once such constructional defects resulted in devastating fires, causing numerous deaths. In order to combat these grievances various organizations have been founded, for instance the French “Malaika” company (means “angel” in Arabic). Regarding these developments the original objective of elevating one’s life standard is rarely achieved and the situation is even continuing to aggravate.