The account is empty, the heating bill is high, the amount on the receipt in the supermarket brings tears to many people’s eyes. With the increase in energy prices and rising inflation, more and more people in the district of Munich are reaching their financial limits and getting into serious difficulties when the payment requests from the electricity and gas providers flutter into the house. The district wants to help now. Although he cannot pay the electricity bill, he wants to ensure that the available financial services reach the people quickly by better networking the help offers and advice centers.
“There is a clear increase in the need for advice and help,” said district administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) at the meeting of the district’s social committee this week. After a meeting with the mayors, he came to the conclusion: “The district has to react, it’s important to give a signal.” After all, the energy crisis has not only massively affected people who are at risk of poverty and who receive social benefits, or people in precarious jobs whose income is just above the income limit for drawing benefits. The middle class is increasingly reaching the limits of what is possible financially, despite orderly living and working conditions. “It was always just enough and then the energy provider made an additional request,” said Göbel. Less money is available for everyday goods such as groceries, and there is now increasing demand at the tables and boards. “The fact that there are waiting lists there is very special.”
Where are the cheap deals? Purchases have become significantly more expensive.
(Photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)
The district administrator also sees the danger that social tensions will increase as a result of the increasing number of people at risk of poverty. “That is rather detrimental to social peace,” said Göbel, who is concerned about people’s trust in democracy and the rule of law. Especially if people got the feeling that more and more refugees were seeking protection here and asking for help, while they themselves no longer knew how to pay their bills. “It’s not like that!” the district administrator emphasized, “we have to tell these people early on: come to us, we can help.”
The first way leads to the town hall
There is state help and support, but the district office is convinced that many of those affected do not even know who to turn to, what options they have and what they can take advantage of. There is social counseling and debt counseling or help with insolvency. But very few people who get into such financial difficulties for the first time contact the district office in Munich immediately. “First of all, people go to the town hall,” Göbel knows from his own experience as a former mayor in Gräfelfing and from the talks with the heads of the town hall this week. They confirmed that the municipal administrations played an important role, as citizens with problems often contact employees in the social welfare office or the mayors directly on site and ask for help. Therefore, access to offers close to where they live should be enabled and facilitated for citizens who need advice. “They have to be easily accessible and we have to make that as transparent as possible,” emphasized the district administrator.
Nicola Gerhardt called for the churches to be included in the aid network.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
It is now important to first collect what help is available and, in dialogue with the municipalities, to make it “passable” for colleagues in the town halls. The family support centers and family centers are also suitable as multipliers for referral to relevant advice centers. After all, there are these facilities close to where you live, spread across the entire district. District Councilor Nicola Gerhardt (CSU) reminded at the meeting not to forget the churches on this topic and to involve them in the passing on of information. “We should also inform the parish secretaries about the offers.”
In order not only to distribute brochures with advice, but also to make additional money available, the district office should examine what possibilities there could be for financial support through foundations in the cities and communities. Barbara Bogner, Mayor of Sauerlach, reported on such a fund in her community. “People keep approaching us who want to donate,” she said. The municipality puts this money aside if, for example, someone needs a washing machine. There are also plans to rededicate the Corona emergency aid fund set up in February 2021. Ingrid Lindbüchl from the Greens suggested renaming it the “Notstrom-Fonds”.