Refugees: “The big goal is to avoid homelessness.” – Politics

Order is back on the first basement floor of Berlin Central Station. At least what Deutsche Bahn understands by that. A few months ago, countless crates full of fruit, sandwiches and bottles of water were stacked in a low but spacious side wing. At that time, hundreds of volunteers tried to take care of thousands of refugees from Ukraine. Now there is silence here. There is no one to be seen, so there is a small sign on one of the walls. On it the pictogram of a guitar player, “Official area for making music”. A number next to the musician’s feet describes how large his stage can be: two square meters.

The times when Berlin’s largest train station was more like a makeshift refugee camp are finally over. The handwritten signposts in Ukrainian, English and German have long been taken down, the welcome hall on the forecourt has shrunk to a few containers. But the busy normality is deceptive. “The year 2022 brought us to the brink of possibility,” says Sascha Langenbach from the State Office for Refugee Affairs. A few days before Christmas, the new head of the state office, Carina Harms, warned: “We can’t do it alone, we need the city companies, the initiatives.”

An unusually pleading appeal that a look at the numbers makes understandable. It is true that there are no longer thousands of refugees who come to Berlin every day, as they sometimes did in the spring. But there are still hundreds of people from Ukraine arriving by train, bus or car. 407 last Wednesday alone. In addition, there are refugees from Afghanistan or Syria, who are arriving in Berlin in large numbers again. More than 12,000 last year.

The containers are designed to ensure a minimum level of privacy

In total, more than 100,000 refugees currently need long-term accommodation in the capital. That’s far more than in the crisis years of 2015 and 2016. And hardly anyone in the Berlin Senate assumes that this will change this year: “You have to be prepared for people fleeing to us and the numbers will continue.” , said the governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) recently.

It is true that the vast majority of Ukrainians who have fled find shelter privately, with relatives or helpful Berliners. Nevertheless, the country currently has to rent almost every room that is suitable for accommodating refugees. Hostels that should have been closed long ago, former shelters for the homeless or simply hotel rooms. Two days before Christmas, an emergency shelter with almost 850 places was opened in the hangars of Tempelhof. Refugees were already accommodated there in a mass camp in 2016, this time individual containers ensure at least a minimum of privacy.

Even the empty congress center in the west of the city, the ICC, is once again being discussed as a place of refuge. Only gymnasiums should under no circumstances be converted into refugee accommodation this time. “That is the goal of the entire Senate,” says Senator for Social Affairs Katja Kipping (Die Linke). It is all the more “really hard work” to offer every refugee a refuge.

At the end of the year, the FDP Berlin demanded that the refugees be accommodated in other federal states. “We must therefore impose an immediate freeze on admissions,” said their socio-political spokesman Tobias Bauschke. A demand that the Senator for Social Affairs considers wrong. Every refugee in Berlin must be given shelter, “that is our humanistic duty”. But the 30,000 beds in the accommodations of the State Office for Refugee Affairs are now almost completely occupied. “Free seats: 497, occupancy: 98.4 percent,” says a listing by the office.

Tegel is a “non-place where civil society has no access,” criticizes the refugee council

In contrast to seven years ago, there is hardly any sign of the large number of refugees in the city. Kipping also explains this with the good cooperation: “The spirit between the Senate Administration, the Senate and the State Office for Refugee Affairs is better.” Another reason for the relative silence is, of all things, a former airport. In the meantime, several thousand places have been set up as emergency shelters in Tegel, and lightweight construction halls were also completed at the turn of the year. Refugees are supposed to move into them this week. “Tegel is at least as bad as a gym,” says the refugee council. It is a “non-place where civil society has no access”.

The refugees are not only accommodated in the terminals and a former hotel, but also in two tents right next to it. Access to the airport site is controlled as before; the high fences and heavy security guards give the impression of being cut off from the rest of the city. A bus is the main route out of the camp, number 440, running every half hour during the day.

Ihor, 19, with his hair in a ponytail and an undercut, is on his way into town. He doesn’t really have any plans there, he says, “just get out of here.” Ihor hails from Luhansk, a Ukrainian city on territory illegally annexed by Russia. He fled to Berlin with his mother, while his father stayed in the Ukraine. Ihor brought many plans here, learn German, then continue his studies as a software engineer.

But all of that seems very far away for him right now. Mother and son have been living in one of the tents for four weeks now, along with hundreds of other people. “It’s ok,” says Ihor, “we have good neighbors, we were really lucky there.” By that he means the people in the bunk bed right next to hers.

There is no privacy whatsoever in these two tents, most people just lie around, cell phones in hand. A few children are frolicking around, on some beds laundry is hanging loosely over the rods to dry. A few older women have gathered around a table near the entrance, with a multi-plug in the middle. A note indicates the place as a mobile phone charging station. It looks as if the provisional has simply moved on from the main station.

The days become weeks

This accommodation was originally intended for a day or two after arrival in Berlin, before moving on to one of the regular accommodations, explains Regina Kneiding from the German Red Cross. Tegel should therefore only be the starting point of a refugee’s path, at the end of which, in the best case scenario, there is their own apartment. But days in Tegel “have now become weeks”. After all, if many Berliners are unable to find a new apartment in the city, how should it be possible for refugees to do so? “The big goal here is to avoid homelessness,” says Kneiding.

The city’s hope now is so-called modular housing. Similar to the system of prefabricated buildings from GDR times, these are houses assembled from prefabricated parts. Some complexes have already opened, and although they do not deliver the standard of a classic new apartment building, they are very solid accommodation. But for the refugees here, they can’t really be more than a hope at the moment. The next settlements should be ready by the end of the year.

source site