It’s that time again: you have to clear out Abraham’s room. Abraham, who doesn’t have that name, has been living in the house for homeless men on Kyreinstrasse for 14 years. Who is a messie and collects umbrella skeletons, French newspapers and other things from all over town until his whole room and even his bed are full of them.
An employee tells her boss Manfred Baierlacher that he is now calm. Tired of screaming. Baierlacher nods. He knows Abraham will join in, just like the last few times. He will choose things to keep. The rest of the stuff comes out, in a container. Just because of the fire hazard. “If I think about it at night, I can’t sleep anymore,” says Manfred Baierlacher. After all, Abraham is not a smoker.
It has been 49 years since Manfred Baierlacher started caring for the homeless. A coincidence, as so often in his life, he says. At the technical college they should do two internships, one educational and one nursing. A classmate told him about the house on Pilgersheimer Strasse, a facility run by the Catholic Men’s Welfare Association for homeless men, about the relatively good pay of six marks an hour and the interesting people there. 18-year-old Manfred Baierlacher started his internship there – and since then the homeless men have accompanied him through life, he has accompanied them through life.
Until now – because now Manfred Baierlacher is retiring at the age of 67 and handing over the management of the house on Kyreinstrasse. After more than 30 years.
Manfred Baierlacher is a tall man with kind brown eyes and a gift for telling stories. Since it was founded in 1989, he has managed the house on Kyreinstrasse. Homeless men for whom there was no place should find a home there. Men with mental illnesses, with addiction problems. “I was always one of those who say: You can’t throw a sick person out on the street. They don’t need a house ban, they need help.” The fact that there are so many mentally ill people living on the streets surprised him too. The waiting list for the house is long, Baierlacher’s big dream – a second facility like the Kyreinstraße – has not yet come true.
Baierlacher actually wanted to study psychology and become an educational advisor. The internship in the house on Pilgersheimer Straße gave his life a different direction. “I learned more on Pilgersheimer Strasse than during my studies,” says Baierlacher. And remembers Otto and the fish can and how naively he started his first internship.
A steady job, an apartment and then starting a family – that was the path for the homeless men, the 18-year-old was convinced of that at the time. After two weeks of internship, resident Otto came to his desk. He had a can of fish and a roll with him, dipped the roll in the canned fish and talked to Baierlacher about the fact that he wanted a permanent job, these odd jobs, they were nothing. Baierlacher fully agreed with him, encouraged him and went home satisfied: “It was really easy, I said to myself, you’ve already got the first one on the right track.”
It didn’t work out after all, the man stayed on Pilgersheimer Strasse for years. “That grounded me and I lowered my expectations a bit.” After graduating, Baierlacher worked as a social worker in the house on Pilgersheimer Strasse for ten years. And then came Kyreinstrasse.
Hundreds of men lived there during the 30 years that Baierlacher managed the house on Kyreinstrasse. Some died there. Others have moved out into their own apartments, and two have married. So it worked out with the family after all. Manfred Baierlacher and his colleague were witnesses to one. And some of them had to be kicked out or transferred to other facilities because it was no longer possible. One, for example, hit an employee three times in the face with his fist. “You have to draw the line there,” says Baierlacher.
They searched for solutions in Kyreinstraße for a long time. Even after those that are not in the handbook of social workers, as Baierlacher says. Just like Abraham the Messiah. Baierlacher knows his story: he was in a coma after a serious motorcycle accident and couldn’t find his way back to his old life when he woke up. It went downhill, he ended up on the street and finally on Kyreinstrasse. There he has arrived, he can be as he is. “That characterizes our house that we feel responsible for the people. “We don’t put people on the street.”
Another man called 911 every night for attention. A difficult resident, they were unsure if he could stay. At some point his father stopped by on Kyreinstrasse and said: This behavior was the result of meningitis his son suffered from as a small child. “It makes you humble,” says Baierlacher, who had small children himself at the time. It was clear to him and his team: we have to be patient with him. It is the man who later asked Baierlacher to be his best man.
Baierlacher is convinced that you can make a difference if you improve the structures for the people. An example: He gradually had the double rooms in the house converted into single rooms with wet rooms. “If you imagine being with complete strangers every day – how you’re supposed to calm down is beyond me.” Now the men can do that. A man lived in the house for 25 years.
With all the hustle and bustle, all the big and small problems every day, Baierlacher has always initiated something new. Co-founded the cooperation with the Isar-Amper-Klinikum, and most recently, a collaboration with architecture students from the TU who are designing accommodation for the homeless. Or the project “Time for homeless people”: Munich residents sit at the gate for two hours and can thus get in touch with the residents. Some of them tell their stories, give an insight into their lives. A valuable exchange for both sides.
So far, not many have come, says Baierlacher. “But those who came were very impressed. And the residents felt it was appreciated that people who had nothing to do with our work were interested in them.” Nothing has come of other ideas. For example, from the idea of renting an apartment in which the men can stay independently, with company, until the end of their lives.
Manfred Baierlacher had postponed the start of his retirement because he wanted to finish what he had started: every resident should have their own room with a bathroom. No more double rooms, instead your own kingdom, peace and quiet. In December 2021, the last construction worker left the house, he says. And now he can go too.
But he doesn’t stop completely. For almost four hours a week he looks after an emergency shelter for the Catholic Men’s Welfare Association in Garmisch. Who stays there? Homeless men, of course.
Will he miss the house and the men? Or he the men? You shouldn’t have any illusions, says Baierlacher, he doesn’t think the men will miss him. And then tells about someone who was well known in the neighborhood. Who wrote his messages with chalk on the garage driveway and with marker on sticky tape: Love Love Peace. He died two years ago. He’s one of the people he misses. But, he says, pointing to his head: he has all the men and their stories in his head.