It doesn’t take much for someone to lose their home and end up on the streets: made ill, lost their job and no longer have money to pay the rent. The “Who’s Next” exhibition, which can be seen in the Architekturmuseum in the Pinakothek der Moderne until February 6, shows many fates what it means to be homeless.
And it also shows what cities and communities can do to get the problem of homelessness under control. Munich is represented in this exhibition, which addresses the topic worldwide, from New York to Mumbai, with a house that opened in 1952, the Municipal Accommodation Center on Pilgersheimer Strasse. Homeless men can find temporary accommodation here, with an average stay of around 50 days.
Currently, a person in the “cold protection” has an average of three square meters of space
A slightly different project that offers the homeless a roof over their heads, at least at night, would also have fitted well into the exhibition: the new building for overnight shelters for the homeless on Lotte-Branz-Strasse. The city council launched this showcase project a year ago, the investment sum is in the double-digit million range. Construction should start in April so that the house can be occupied in 2023.
It will function according to the same pattern as the city’s cold protection, which is housed in the Bayernkaserne buildings that have not yet been demolished. In the “Who’s Next” exhibition, previous overnight protection is only briefly shown as a pictogram on the wall. Three squares show how much living space is available to people in Munich. Anyone who has an apartment has an average of about 39 square meters. In the current protection against the cold, this area, i.e. one room, is available for twelve people, which results in an average of only three square meters.
That should change in the new building. Approximately 800 beds in four-bed rooms are planned. Experience has shown that previous occupancy in rooms with eight to twelve beds has often led to conflicts. And especially now, during the pandemic, when the cold protection rooms are open all year round – unlike in the past – you have to proceed with room occupancy in such a way that as few people as possible are together in a small space. And you will also be able to accommodate people according to their needs, there will be rooms for people in wheelchairs or with walkers, sick and crisis rooms and also the chance for homeless men and women to find accommodation with their dog. Rooms for medical treatment and a daytime café are also planned.
With the new building, Munich is sending “a clear humanitarian signal,” says social affairs officer Schiwy
“We are glad that after moving out of the Bayern barracks, we can continue the nationwide offer of overnight protection to the same extent and better standards than in the previous provisional without interruption,” says Munich’s social officer Dorothee Schiwy. At the same time, she points out that Munich is sending “a clear humanitarian signal for a social city” and also offers “poor people who are looking for work in Munich or who are simply stranded in our city” a temporary place to stay.
In the social department, it is expected that precisely because of the economic consequences of the pandemic, people from Eastern Europe will continue to come to Munich to find work here. Therefore, the new building is designed for 800 places, which includes a buffer of more than 300 beds. On average there were up to 400 overnight stays per night in the winter before the pandemic, in summer 2020 it was 374 per night.
The city has also examined whether, instead of building a new building, homeless people could be accommodated in hotels. Roughly speaking, with an overnight price of between 30 and 50 euros, this would have resulted in costs of more than seven million euros per year, not including the necessary security service. This will also be easier and cheaper to do in the new building on Lotte-Branz-Strasse. The new center also includes rooms for the initial medical examination for asylum seekers and for homeless people who need a medical certificate that they do not have contagious pulmonary tuberculosis before being admitted to the cold shelter.
The project was put out to tender across Europe, and a German general contractor was awarded the contract on December 15, 2021. The building is designed by the Munich office Hild und K Architekten. According to a statement from the office, the aim is “to provide an impetus for future urban development with the volume that is effective in terms of urban planning”.
Model for the new protection against the cold: the home for singles on Bergmannstraße.
(Photo: David Wunschel)
In doing so, one ties in with a historical model, the singles’ home built by Theodor Fischer in 1927 on Bergmannstraße with its brick architecture. The color of the new building is reminiscent of the bricks, at least in the simulation, but the building is largely made of wood. The timber hybrid system construction specified by the city has a better CO₂ balance than a purely solid construction.