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As a result of the overload of local residential capacity for asylum seekers in the Rhône département, ongoing adaptation is required of voluntary bodies and local institutions. In order to meet emergencies, the various actors put together solutions and seek to facilitate access to asylum and more generally to rights. The example of the Lyons metropolitan area shows that a system based on attractiveness and a tradition of welcome has produced a well-organized framework that nonetheless sometimes shows its limitations by the inequalities it produces. Housing for asylum seekers raises, perhaps more than for any other group, issues of access to rights. While the system is strongly organized, access to specialized housing is not ensured for many asylum seekers, who are compelled to live in the street or to use facilities that are unable to provide necessary support in preparing their asylum claim. The criteria for access to housing are more or less clearly formalized, family status and in particular the presence of children being the main factor. Single asylum seekers often end up in emergency accommodation where they are unlikely to receive the support that is so valuable in obtaining refugee status. More generally, access to housing determines access to rights and specifically to the right to asylum. The reform of asylum law, the instructions relating to which have just been published (August 2004) provides for faster processing of applications, but offers no response to housing needs. Can the local system continue to sup port a system that brings up its own contradictions?