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Since 2019, a government program has been aimed at combating poor housing in the Île-de-France region, while revitalizing declining medium-sized towns and reducing their vacancy rates. The scheme encourages precarious households in the Paris region to move to these areas voluntarily, in exchange for a job opportunity. This article analyzes the relationship between these different objectives in the implementation of the program, showing that it is achieved through the imperative of getting people back into work in medium-sized towns. While this imperative is widely shared by local government officials and local authority representatives alike, it does not prevent the program from being received in contrasting ways, linked to the negative categorization of working-class, disadvantaged, and predominantly racialized households, whose mobility outside the Île-de-France region is encouraged by the program.