Shared story
Our ambition is clear: to help our residents become independent and integrated into society
A leading private provider of solidarity housing, Résidis operates housing complexes located mainly in the Île-de-France region, as well as in Marseille and Perpignan. Providing accommodation to a wide variety of profiles including isolated individuals, asylum seekers, female victims of domestic violence, the homeless and unaccompanied minors, Résidis ensures they all benefit from quality housing.
Crossed viewpoints
Alexandre Fedoroff It all started for us in 2021.
Cédric Weinberg Metric Capital Partners, an English-speaking investment fund, and the majority shareholder in Résidis, originally contacted us to help them define and implement the impact plan. Very quickly, we agreed on the need to focus the impact at the heart of the Résidis model, in order to ensure the lasting nature of our activity. As you know, each time we invest, we create specific impact plans to suit the activity, challenges and the economic models of our investments in order to offer lasting value. We leveraged our expertise to help you create an impact plan, tailor-made for Résidis and consisting of three priority areas: enhancing housing conditions, improving living conditions and integrating residents. And this is where your involvement takes on its full meaning. We were looking for a manager who could meet our aspirations. Your background and achievements working for social enterprises spoke volumes about you.
A.F. There was a clear task at hand: to overhaul Résidis. To forge a reason for being and a new identity with all of the employees. It was this challenge that convinced me to embark with you on this human and entrepreneurial adventure. Your support was decisive for the smooth running of our ambitious undertaking.
C.W. That’s right. Our project was groundbreaking in the emergency housing sector which, don’t forget, is a new business line for investment funds. Few stakeholders showed any interest in it three years ago. We were the first to invest in this market with all the complexity it represents in terms of positioning and communication. Years of abuse and slum landlords had tarnished the image of the people who once worked honestly in the emergency housing sector.
A.F. When you consider that our residents stay for an average of two and a half years, we could no longer operate as simple landlords. We shared this vision. We had to go further: to improve our quality of services to maximise the likelihood of our residents’ integration, by making specific investments to enable all of our tenants to benefit equally: families suffering financial hardship, isolated individuals, the homeless, migrants, asylum seekers, etc. From the start of our common adventure, we set ourselves a clear and precise road map with real, measurable and identifiable KPIs which are audited yearly by an independent third party.
C.W. There is great need. Over one million people live in a situation of precarity today in France. Of the 200,000 people living in emergency shelters, 80,000 are housed by private operators such as ourselves due to the growing need. Against this backdrop, we have manged to build a sustainable model that is showing results and working in close collaboration with our public ecosystem. And this means that it’s working, isn’t that right Sabrina?
Sabrina Najdi Yes! You can’t ask or force a family with children to spend all day in room measuring eight metres squared. We provide emergency shelter but we also support our residents without distinction, throughout their stay in our housing complexes. It was therefore crucial to provide a quality residential experience with genuine services. My task is to deploy the impact plan across all of our housing complexes.
C.W. With the main challenge of developing our communal areas and forging partnerships with local associations so they can support our residents as they strive for greater autonomy and integration.
S.N. Coordinating and fostering association partnerships so that they are tangible and standardised in all the complexes, is one of my daily tasks. Whether it’s homework help for children, French lessons for adults, providing a library and computer rooms, organising early learning and health-related workshops and sporting activities. My aim is to create living spaces within our complexes.
C.W. Our road map was clear and it is a source of pride for us: to enable Résidis to become a platform for cooperation with social workers to make it easier for residents to achieve autonomy.