They offer young people with psychosocial problems a place to stay, give refugees a home, have accommodation for drug, alcohol and gambling addicts. The Condrobs association, founded 50 years ago, is responsible for a wide range of social support offers, from street work on the celebration banana to educational support and employment projects for disadvantaged women. So much social commitment is of course enthusiastically celebrated in Sunday speeches. But what if the contact shop for people with drug problems opens in the building just across the street? When the residential group for older drug addicts moves in right next door?
“We’re not popular,” says Karin Wiggenhauser. At Condrobs she is the head of the department for help for adults and Bavaria-wide offers. “There’s always an outcry when we come.” Wiggenhauser agrees with her colleagues Pia Müller and Olaf Ostermann, especially when the clients are people “who stand out in the cityscape” and especially when it comes to drugs. Müller is facility manager for “Assisted Living 40+”, Ostermann heads the department for older people and low-threshold help in Munich.
They’ve heard everything from property owners’ concerns that their property will lose value in the presence of such neighbors to parents’ fears when the children’s playground is right next to the Condrobs rooms. From anger about loud music in youth communities and cigarette butts on the doorstep to complaints about syringes in the bushes. Basically, you have to take every complaint seriously, says Olaf Ostermann. And of course you can’t sugarcoat the problems: “It’s a given that our people are ill and therefore have behavioral problems,” says Pia Müller.
A compromise was found for the contact shop in Neuperlach
So it hooks, sometimes even huge. At the Pedro shop in Neuperlach, for example. He was housed on Ollenhauerstrasse for more than 20 years, then the homeowner did not extend the lease in 2018 – because of the neighbors, as he wrote in the notice. Condrobs couldn’t find a new place to stay, and the Catholic Church ultimately came to the rescue: In 2019, the contact shop was housed in two former youth rooms in the basement of the Stephanszentrum. It was very cramped for the distribution of food and syringes, consultations and the daily hot lunch, but still. The move to a new Gewofag building on Hanns-Seidel-Platz is now planned for the end of 2022. “And then there was a great deal of unrest, as always,” reports Karin Wiggenhauser. In the meantime, however, a compromise has been found with the neighbors: the contact shop was not housed in an apartment near the playground, but found other rooms for it.
Without Gewofag and GWG “we would look bad,” says Wiggenhauser. The two municipal housing companies are the most important landlords for Condrobs. However, the association with more than 70 facilities throughout Bavaria and almost 1000 employees is only one of several applicants from the social sector, so the competition is fierce. And the fact that the influx to Munich is continuing unabated does not make the search any easier.
So Condrobs also relies on private landlords. The maximum that is paid is what the city specifies as the upper rent limit, for one person and 50 square meters of living space that is currently 688 euros. Space for a contact and meeting place at the Pasing train station is urgently needed. The west of Munich is “somewhat undersupplied,” says Ostermann. The association finances its work with public funds, health and pension insurance institutions, donations and fines.
Many addicts would like to “move quite normally in society”
And what do those responsible do now when they have finally found urgently needed rooms and the residents immediately start collecting signatures to get rid of the unloved new neighbor? Talk, talk, talk, say Wiggenhauser, Müller and Ostermann. Looking for a conversation, with the clients as well as with the complainants, organizing round tables, organizing open days, distributing flyers with your contact details in the mailboxes all around, maybe accepting parcels for the area, because that’s where you always make friends,” and sometimes we tidy up more than we have to.”
At Hohenzollernplatz in Schwabing, for example, Olaf Ostermann reports, there is often trouble with people who have nothing to do with Condrobs. “But then you record the conversation, even if you’re not responsible.” In the case of the local contact shop, a great deal was achieved when the Condrobs clients began to get involved in setting up and dismantling district festivals. And it is also important to get the local politicians on board.
“Of course there are still complaints,” admits Ostermann and tells of an old neighbor who was initially so upset about bottles lying around that it was no longer possible to speak to her. Later she still scolded – but she also came over for a warm lunch. And there are clients who do dog sitting in the neighborhood or drop by the retirement home to play cards. Because, adds Pia Müller, most of her protégés would like to have contact with non-addicts, would like to “move normally in society”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/.”If you dare to accept that” , sums up Olaf Ostermann, “then it is enriching for both sides.”