The social housing in Angers, an exhibition at Chemelier hall

Under the title "Home, it's life, an history of social housing in Angers", the Angers'town hall organizes, on october 15th, in Chemelier hall, an exhibition dedicated to this specific locative status and, quite often, architecture. Social housing is, since a long time (almost 80 years), present in Angers. Public and also private initiatives took part in the interest granted to the housing conditions of the workers. The inheritance of these two origins is visible in the coexistence of public and private organizations : in Angers, Angers Habitat, on one side and societies like Le toit Angevin and Le Val de Loire, on the other.

At the very beginning, it seems that the cottages was the most frequent residence dedicated to the workers. Some of them still exist in Angers but were outnumbered, ath the beginning of the 60's by buildings in which (according to the accounts of the new inhabitants of those flats) people were hapy to come in. During the 70's the trend reversed toward individuals homes. More than 35 000 social homes are counted in Angers.

If, since a recent period, the social organizations of Angers implemented important schemes of urban renewal, they are nevertheless weakened by the empoverishement ot the families they house, themselves affected by unemployment, a problem which makes the collective life in buildings, much more complicated. These organizations face a new challenge due the state financial difficulties : the necessity to sold a part of their properties to finance their projects. These could lead to an acceleration of the turnover of their inhabitants.