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Drawing upon fieldwork research (2008-2010), this essay presents the complex issue of occupancy status in a public housing neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. The article examines the pyramid of status that stems from moral agreements, practical kinship, and economic alliances, which are pursued in order to access or conserve assured tenancy. More than a third of households are in debt for rent, which forces them to sublease a bed or bedroom to avoid eviction. But sub-tenants engaged in this type of informal “kinship leasing” encounter national regulations when they seek to assume the subsequent lease. The constitutional right to housing is undermined by the hundreds of indebted or evicted, homeowners who swell the rolls of social services. Families invent practical solutions while they await a legal certainty with regard to housing.