“The situation is precarious,” says Stephanie Watschöder. She is a specialist at Caritas for the coordination of homeless assistance in southern Bavaria and states: “The burden is high.” Namely, in the so-called regulatory accommodation. This is the form of accommodation that is offered to people when they do not have their own living space or their rental contract is no longer valid.
That all sounds pretty technical, but in Bavaria, as of January 2022, it is reality for 17,910 people. In 2014 it was 12,053, three years later it was 15,517. The Bavarian Association of Cities calls this “worrying”. The costs have increased in almost all areas of life and with them the number of people who need help, says Caritas specialist Watschöder. The offers of help are now in just as much demand as before Corona, in some cases even more.
In its response to a small inquiry from the Left Party, the federal government is unable to say how many people in the Free State really live on the streets, i.e. not in emergency accommodation. There are only estimates, the federal government’s 2022 homelessness report mentions around 37,400 people across Germany.
The inquiry about the 17,910 homeless people in Bavarian accommodation brings more precise insights. About these: More than 5000 belong to a family with a child. “It’s a huge topic,” says Watschöder. Affected children begin at an early age to hide things, to feel ashamed. “If your best friend from school wants to visit you at home – do you take them with you to the emergency shelter?” she asks. And refrains from answering. The Association of Cities and Towns is also concerned about the situation of homeless children, in such cases the lack of a center of their own life weighs particularly heavily.
In the emergency shelter for almost three years
Men are most often affected by homelessness; they make up a good two-thirds of the people in accommodation in the Free State. Only about a third of all have German citizenship. What is remarkable is the long stay in the shelters, which lasts an average of two years and ten months in Germany.
In Bavaria, there are 1.4 people in emergency accommodation for every 1,000 inhabitants, which puts the Free State in the middle. For comparison: In the city states of Berlin and Hamburg, the figures are 7.1 and 10.4 people per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively. Most homeless people also live in Bavaria in the big cities: Munich (almost 9000, as of January 2022) is followed at a great distance by Nuremberg (1910), before Augsburg (765) and Würzburg (390).
In Würzburg they have been noticing “slightly increasing numbers” for years, which this year have reached 442 homeless people in shelters. “And as is probably everywhere, the shortage of affordable housing is a problem,” says Christian Weiß, spokesman for the city. In Würzburg, homeless people are accommodated, among other things, in older apartments that are available for this purpose.
Figures like these show that there is a lack of affordable housing: In 2020 and 2021, the Bavarian state government approved funding for the construction of 9,040 social housing units – in the same period, 9,421 fell out of the rent control. At least it can be said that the annual subsidization of social housing has increased significantly since 2012.
Nevertheless: “The biggest problem remains the lack of affordable housing,” says Stephanie Watschöder from Caritas. An assessment that also comes to the homeless aid Bavaria, a working group funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs, which promotes aid projects throughout Bavaria. Despite the expansion of outpatient advisory structures, it will not be possible to curb homelessness “without a trend reversal on the rental housing market”, according to its 2022 report. The Federal Government has set itself the goal of reducing homelessness by 2030 with the help of a national action plan to overcome – currently difficult to imagine.
After all, Stephanie Watschöder also sees progress. About the type of accommodation. There are increasingly specific offers for people with different needs: accommodation for people with mental illnesses, for women, families, people with dogs. In addition, the counseling services have improved since the Bavarian Homeless Aid was founded. “You have to go to the people,” says Watschöder. The bureaucratic hurdles are too high for people in dire straits to resist. Many would not know their claims, not everyone understands the content of all twelve social code books. Watschöder therefore considers a “wide expansion of outreach advisory structures” to be necessary.
Because, according to the Bavarian Association of Cities, those affected are still often not available for help, for example if they are addicted or are not allowed to stay in accommodation because of pets. “Reaching these groups of people and not exposing them to additional dangers from the cold and crime is an urgent problem, especially in large cities.”
Stephanie Watschöder welcomes the fact that the dimensions of homelessness are becoming more visible, even though the homeless report from last year is still unclear. For example, this shows zero accommodated people for the city of Memmingen – when asked, a spokeswoman for the city said that between 30 and 50 people were always accommodated. Even in the district of Hof, no one really knows why the table does not show a single homeless person in shelters. In any case, one thing is clear, as Watschöder puts it: “The problem will remain with us for a while.”