The city of Paris has been ordered by the administrative court to revisit a social housing application that was twice rejected without clear explanation.
Under Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s administration, the city’s housing services must now re-evaluate the case of a man whose applications for social housing were dismissed twice in a month, with no reasons provided. The applicant had sought accommodation since 2021 through Loc’Annonces, an online platform that allows users to apply for available social housing. He applied for two apartments in Paris in April and May 2024, but both applications were rejected due to “numerous applications” and despite a purported “careful review of all files.”
The administrative court of Paris has delivered its verdict on November 21, 2024, after the man challenged the city’s decision for being inadequately justified. The court criticized the city’s system of categorizing housing applications by a point system. This system ranks applications based on predefined criteria, which are not detailed in the court’s ruling.
The judgment revealed that for social housing allocations, the city employs a system where the top five applications are automatically forwarded to a candidate selection committee. This committee then chooses three candidates, ranks them in order of preference, and submits them to an allocation committee. The allocation committee ultimately assigns the housing to the top-ranked applicant, moving down the list in the event of refusals.
In this particular case, the court found that the rejection merely stated that there were many applications and that the man’s application was not selected, without specifying why. The absence of personalized information regarding his circumstances led the court to deem the city’s decision as “insufficiently motivated.”
Additionally, the court noted that the second rejection was signed by an “incompetent authority,” the deputy director of housing for the city, rather than the appropriate commission. As a result, the court ordered the city to pay 1,000 euros in legal costs to the applicant for each of the two cases.
