Welcoming refugees and new arrivals

The City of Montpellier, a member of the Association Nationale des Villes et Territoires Accueillants (ANVITA), is committed to a global dynamic of welcome and integration. Its mission is to facilitate the integration of migrants on its territory. Its action, along with that of the Centre Communal d'Action Sociale (CCAS), takes into account everyone on the territory, whatever their nationality of origin.

It is within this framework that the City of Montpellier is signing the Contrat Territorial d'Accueil et d'Intégration des Réfugiés (CTAIR) with the State on December 10, 2021.

The CTAIR targets new people who have obtained the benefit of international protection (BPI) under an asylum application or conjunctural humanitarian considerations and are stabilizing their residence in the metropolis. By the end of 2023, it is estimated that over 500 people could benefit from a CTAIR action.

A 2022-2024 assessment demonstrating the real added value of the actions of the City of Montpellier, the CCAS and associative partners:

• 15 6-month CDDs created within city teams for integration positions with French classes and digital workshops during working hours.
• 5 families and single people accommodated in infill housing, with 1/5 of the places opened by the city sanctuarized for refugees.
• 21 young male refugees, without solutions on leaving their Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (CADA) accommodated in a solidarity hotel created by the CCAS
• An exhaustive study of the tools and players for learning French in Montpellier.
• The creation of a French-language learning program including crèche places and integrated childcare facilities for young refugee parents.

Montpellier's CCAS is setting up several schemes to welcome refugees and new arrivals to the area.

Accompanying the refugee public towards employment

• The Unis'Vers Réfugiés scheme

Implemented since 2021 by the CCAS's Centre d'Expérimentations et d'Innovation Sociale (CEIS), the Unis'Vers Réfugiés scheme aims to facilitate the integration of people with refugee status on Montpellier territory.

It is funded as part of the Contrat Territorial d'Accueil et d'Intégration des Réfugiés (CTAIR) adopted between the City of Montpellier and the State at the end of 2021. This program has 3 objectives:

1. Social and civic inclusion through a better understanding of the administrative system.
2. Digital inclusion to carry out procedures and a job search online in complete autonomy.
3. Professional inclusion through learning how to behave and know how in the workplace.

At the end of Unis'Vers Réfugiés and thanks to a €40,000 CTAIR grant, CEIS is offering people closest to employment, individualized and reinforced socio-professional support.

The challenge is to pass on all the tools and codes needed to access employment. This support includes the definition of a professional project and adapted language training followed by a period of immersion within the CCAS.

• A specific scheme to support the refugee public in jobs in short supply

Since December 2022, a new CTAIR-funded initiative has been piloted by the Centre d'expérimentation et d'innovation sociale (CEIS) at the CCAS for refugees with very low language skills (A1). It concerns their recruitment and support in taking up their positions.

In Montpellier, there are many positions to be filled at the CCAS, the City and the Metropole (school catering agents, maintenance agents, collection cleaning agents, vehicle pool operations managers, etc.).

Objective: to accompany refugees in a process of accessing and maintaining employment on 20 3-month contracts, financed by the City and the Metropole.

Every Tuesday, interested publics are followed up at CEIS, from interview preparation to application, right through to taking up the job. The support offered is designed both to improve the use of the French language, focusing on vocabulary related to the job in question, and to remove the social obstacles that could lead to a breach of contract (problems with childcare, residence permits, mobility, breach of rights). It provides a link with department managers in the event of difficulties.

• Les Fauvettes: a new accommodation and support facility

Since December 5, 2022, the Montpellier CCAS has been housing and supporting isolated male refugees at Les Fauvettes, a residence located on rue Bonnard, right in the city center.

Oriented by the Service Intégré d'Accueil et d'Orientation (SIAO), the group is made up of single male refugees aged between 18 and 30. In very precarious situations, they find themselves without stable accommodation once their status as beneficiaries of international protection has been granted. The challenge is to get them into care quickly, to avoid or limit street routes.

They are housed for a period of 6 months, renewable once, and contribute 10% of their resources to be housed.

These people benefit from individual and collective support provided by the multidisciplinary teams at the CEIS located near Les Fauvettes (a coordinator, a social worker, a social and family economics advisor and an educational monitor).
Each person can thus take part in group workshops by joining Unis'Vers Réfugiés, and/or be offered support towards employment.

The challenge: to pass on linguistic, digital and literacy skills to the people welcomed, so that they can access their rights.

The Fauvettes hotel has already been mobilized in the past to rehouse people in emergency situations at the request of local authorities. Purchased last August by the City, it has been made available to the CCAS free of charge.