Poverty Is Becoming Deeper and More Persistent

Across France, volunteers serving people in vulnerable situations are witnessing a worsening crisis. In Lyon, Jorge Da Silva, a volunteer with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, encounters a growing number of unhoused people during street outreach. Rising living costs, an inability to pay rent, and an overloaded emergency shelter system can quickly lead to a devastating chain of events: eviction, homelessness, isolation, and sometimes substance use as a means of escaping an unbearable reality.

This experience reflects the findings of France’s Observatory of Inequalities. According to its latest study, 5.4 million people were living below the poverty line in France in 2023. Poverty has been increasing gradually since the early 2000s, but its effects are becoming more deeply embedded in society. Extreme poverty is growing, and many people are remaining in poverty for longer periods. Their chances of escaping it also vary greatly depending on age, family and employment circumstances, and the resources available to them.

Adapting to New Forms of Hardship

In response to these changes, charitable organizations must continually rethink how they work. Poverty is not always visible on the street. It can affect students, older adults, families, or people facing health problems who live in serious hardship without necessarily asking for assistance.

Some initiatives therefore seek to reach this hidden poverty through solidarity food trucks located near universities, home visits, health care outreach, and mobile services that go directly to those in need.

Within the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, local Conferences operate according to the principle of subsidiarity. Each team has meaningful freedom to identify the needs of its own community and develop the most appropriate responses, while remaining connected to departmental and national priorities. This local approach recognizes that the challenges faced by one neighborhood, city, or region may differ significantly from those found elsewhere.

A more difficult economic environment has also made cooperation among organizations essential. Social workers, municipalities, parishes, and charitable groups share information and expertise to identify those who need help and accompany them more effectively. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Order of Malta collaborate in several locations, including day centers, health care facilities, solidarity grocery stores, and welcoming cafés known as Cafés Sourire.

Fraternity Begins with Encounter

Such cooperation is an important step, but it is not enough by itself to make fraternity present throughout society. Fraternity requires us to recognize every person as someone like ourselves, regardless of age, background, religion, or social circumstances. What happens to another person cannot be a matter of indifference.

Volunteers with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul first seek to practice this fraternity among themselves. They remain connected outside their charitable activities, share meals, and help one another. The people they accompany can sense this unity and discover a team that is close-knit and available.

Above all, however, fraternity is built through relationships with those who are welcomed. The defining work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul remains the personal visit, because it creates space for encounter, attentive listening, and long-term accompaniment. Taking time to speak with someone, listen to their story, and come to know them personally can mark the beginning of recovery and help restore their dignity.

Volunteers therefore receive training in how to listen well. Some teams also prefer to speak of “the friends we welcome” rather than “beneficiaries.” This change in language expresses a profound conviction: the relationship does not flow in only one direction. Friendships develop, words, gestures, and glances are exchanged, and volunteers acknowledge that they too receive a great deal from these encounters. Fraternity then becomes a shared joy.

Removing the Boundary Between Those Who Help and Those Who Receive Help

The International Rule of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul encourages its members to gradually remove the boundary between those who offer help and those who receive it. From its beginnings, the Society has sought to make faith come alive through a form of charity capable of creating genuine relationships of fraternity.

For Vincentians, service means trying to recognize Christ in the person who is poor. This is not always easy. Personal wounds, distrust, or the harshness of certain situations can make an encounter difficult. Yet these experiences invite volunteers to look beyond appearances, set judgment aside, and grow in love of neighbor.

Prayer therefore plays an important role in the life of Vincentian teams. Some meetings begin and end with a hymn, a spiritual reading, or a time of prayer. “Conferences of prayer” also enable Vincentians who can no longer travel to remain united with their former teams. They pray for their work, for the volunteers, and for the people being accompanied.

In a world marked by poverty, isolation, and the weakening of social bonds, fraternity is far more than an ideal. It becomes a concrete way of resisting indifference, restoring dignity to wounded people, and building a society in which everyone can recognize one another as brothers and sisters.

To explore this reflection further and read the complete testimonies, visit the original Ozanam Magazine French article: “La fraternité, repère dans un monde fragile”.

Source: https://www.ssvp.fr/