35 - Possibility of an immediate application in the event of urgent need: persons at risk of eviction without rehousing, in temporary accommodation or housed in slums or unfit housing may apply to the committee without being turned down on the grounds of an unusually long time-lag. - Reform of the action taken on committee decisions: although the mediation committee remains an advisory body, it will be able to address an opinion to the prefect, who will then have the power to require a landlord to allocate a home to the person whose application had been recognised by the mediation committee as taking priority. 127. Thus the reformed mediation committee does provide “legal redress”, in the sense meant by the ECSR, for an applicant who has been kept waiting for an excessive length of time, or, at any time, for applicants in a particularly urgent situation. The new powers given to the prefect will enable the State to play to the full its role as guarantor of the right to housing. B. Assessment of the Committee 128. In general terms, none of the observations submitted by the Government – which basically consist in a description of the regulatory and organisational efforts undertaken – are of such a nature as to counter the key arguments presented by ATD Fourth World that refer to these issues. 129. The Committee notes that the Anti-Exclusion Act of 1998 constitutes an effort to improve the system of allocating social rental housing. However, there is clear evidence that the system is still not functioning well, which is illustrated by the fact that a large part of the demand for social housing remains unsatisfied (only 5-10% of the poorest households obtain social housing), and that average waiting-times for allocation are still too long (around 2 years and 4 months). 130. The Committee considers that the allocation procedure does not ensure sufficient fairness and transparency, since social housing is not reserved for the poorest households. The application of the concept of “social mix” in the 1998 Act, which is often used as the basis for refusing social housing, often leads to discretionary results excluding the poor from access to social housing. The major problem stems from the unclear definition of this concept in the law, and in particular, from the lack of any guidelines on how to implement it in practice. Therefore, the Committee considers that the inadequate availability of social housing for the most disadvantaged persons amounts to a breach of the Revised Charter. 131. In addition, the system of legal redress for people who are denied social housing, is also subject to serious shortcomings, namely: the mediation commissions foreseen by the Act to examine applications which are pending after an excessive waiting time have only been created in a minority of municipalities. The Committee considers that this remedy is not sufficiently efficient, and therefore that the situation on this point is not in conformity with Article 31§3 of the Revised Charter.