At least 2,355 children on the street: that is the number of minors left without anywhere to sleep after their parents called 115 on the night of 18 to 19 August 2026. Of these, 514 were under 3 and 173 under one year old. The figure is up 9% on 2025 and 42% on 2022.
The data come from the annual barometer published on 26 August 2026 by UNICEF France and the Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité (FAS, a French federation of social welfare organisations), for the eighth year running. Here is what it measures, what it doesn’t, which families are affected and what the two organisations are calling for.
Children on the street: what does the UNICEF-FAS barometer measure?
The barometer counts the children for whom a parent called 115, France’s emergency accommodation number, without getting a place for the night. The data come from the SIAO (services intégrés d'accueil et d'orientation), which run 115 in each département. The reference night is set shortly before the start of the school year, every year since 2019.
It is a count, not an estimate. It does not include unanswered calls, families who gave up calling, or unaccompanied minors, who are counted separately by other bodies. UNICEF France and the FAS therefore present it as a minimum. The real number of children sleeping outside or in makeshift shelter is higher.
How many children sleep on the street in France?
At least 2,355 on the night of 18 to 19 August 2026, according to the barometer. That includes 514 children under 3, among them 173 babies under one year old. In Île-de-France, the worst-hit region, 1,940 children were affected that night. Every part of the country is affected, with the highest numbers in Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Hauts-de-France and Occitanie.
A steady rise since 2022
The 2026 barometer shows a 9% increase in one year. The 2025 edition had counted 2,159 children. Over four years, the rise reaches 42%. The two organisations describe a situation that is “getting worse”, with a constant increase since 2022.
For the overseas territories, the Fondation pour le logement (a French housing charity) compiles separate data, cited in coverage of the barometer. It reports more than 1,300 children left without a solution after calling 115 in La Réunion in 2025. That is 30% more than in 2024.
Which families are affected?
On the reference night, 6,840 people in total were left without a solution after calling 115. Of these, 4,300 were living as a family, or 63%. Families are therefore the first victims of the overstretched emergency shelter system.
The most common profile is a woman on her own with one or more children: 1,755 women in this situation, or 41% of people in families. This number has doubled since 2022. There were 604 single women without children, a figure that has also doubled in four years.
Some of these families are single parents whose income collapsed after a separation, a job loss or the end of support. The practical ways a single parent with a newborn can get organised are set out in our article on daily life as a single parent with a baby.
Why 115 can no longer find places
The emergency shelter system has around 203,000 places, a level unchanged since 2021 while demand keeps rising. With no places to spare, 89% of SIAO have had to introduce prioritisation criteria, according to the FAS survey of these services. In practice, the remaining places go to the situations judged most vulnerable.
A SIAO call handler quoted in the barometer sums up the triage that follows: “If you don’t have a child under one or you’re not 8 months pregnant, you don’t get accommodation.” In some départements, having a 2-year-old child is no longer enough to get a place for the night.
UNICEF France and the FAS link this saturation to the fall in social housing construction and allocations, which stops people moving on from shelters into housing. The Cour des comptes (France’s national audit office) and several inspection bodies have also criticised the recurring under-budgeting of emergency accommodation.
What this means for a baby
The barometer does not publish health data on the children counted. It describes the insecurity and instability these families live with: nights in a car, a hallway, a tent, a different shelter every evening. For a newborn, this means disrupted meals, sleep and medical follow-up, and exposure to the cold as winter approaches.
Women leaving the maternity ward with nowhere to stay are a situation charities flag every year. The average length of stay, 4.7 days in 2024, leaves little time to organise discharge: we break down these figures in our article on length of stay in the maternity ward.
For these families, the PMI (protection maternelle et infantile, France’s public mother and child health service) remains a free gateway to medical follow-up, vaccinations and social support, with no conditions on income or housing. How it works is explained in our article on the PMI appointment.
What UNICEF France and the FAS are calling for
The two organisations point to the commitment, made and then renewed by successive governments, that no child should sleep on the street. They call it a “broken promise” and speak of a “collective failure”. Adeline Hazan, president of UNICEF France, insists: “Behind this figure, the result of a collective failure, there are children.”
- Create 10,000 additional shelter places, including 2,500 reserved for pregnant women or women leaving maternity, bringing the total to 213,000 places.
- Make rent controls permanent and extend them nationwide, and revive the construction and allocation of social housing.
- Overhaul policy on homelessness in conjunction with child protection, with comprehensive, uninterrupted support.
- Make the issue a priority of housing policy, including in the debates for the 2027 presidential election.
How to read these figures alongside Insee data
The barometer does not measure poverty, but its most extreme form. In the background, Insee (France’s national statistics office) has established that in 2024, 22.4% of minors were living below the monetary poverty line, or nearly 2.9 million children. Single-parent families are the most exposed. We covered these results in detail in our article on child poverty in France.
Between monetary poverty and the street, there is financial support that cushions the shock of a birth on a tight budget. Amounts and eligibility are set out in our articles on the birth grant and the Paje basic allowance, a French family benefit for young children. The real cost of the first year is detailed in our article on the baby budget for the first year.
Key takeaways
- At least 2,355 children on the street on the night of 18 to 19 August 2026, including 514 under 3 and 173 under one year old.
- A 9% rise in one year and 42% since 2022; the figure is a minimum, based solely on calls to 115.
- 63% of people left without a solution live in families; the number of single women with children has doubled in four years.
- 203,000 emergency shelter places, unchanged since 2021; 89% of SIAO prioritise requests.
- UNICEF France and the FAS are calling for 10,000 more places, including 2,500 for pregnant women or women leaving maternity.
Sources
- Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité and UNICEF France, “Baromètre des enfants à la rue 2026”, published on 26 August 2026.
- UNICEF France, “2 355 enfants à la rue : le triste bilan d'une promesse non tenue”, August 2026.
- Banque des Territoires (Localtis), “"Zéro enfant à la rue" : les associations déplorent un "échec collectif"”, 31 August 2026.
- Maire-info (Association des maires de France), “Enfants à la rue : 2 355 cas recensés par l'Unicef à la veille de la rentrée”, 15 September 2026.
- Insee, Insee Première, standards of living and poverty in 2024, published in 2026 (figures taken from our article of 25 October 2026).
