It still smells a bit musty in the inconspicuous house on Starnberger Straße, diagonally across from the town hall in Hohenschäftlarn. It’s cool compared to the summer heat outside. The people scurrying back and forth are still sweating: refugees from the Ukraine will soon be living in the vicarage, which has been uninhabited for years. The village community tackles this.
Regina Böck and Marcel Tonnar are standing in front of the new kitchen, which is gleaming white. “Sure, it stunk,” says Tonnar. The 42-year-old is deputy mayor and sits on the municipal council for the Greens. “They said: That’s impossible.” He looks at Bock. “Then Franz, you and I said: That is possible!”
Regina Böck and Marcel Tonnar are both on the parish council of the Catholic Church of St. George, Böck’s husband Franz Böck is also involved in church administration. When Russia attacked the Ukraine and the first people fled to Germany, Tonnar and the Böck couple were repeatedly asked about the old vicarage on the main street: Why couldn’t refugees find accommodation there? Together they opened the door of the empty house: cobwebs, garbage and broken furniture, files, dirt, faded documents – the rooms were dirty, dusty and neglected. The church ordinariate was also initially skeptical, say Tonnar and Böck. “Franz said: I can’t hear it anymore, this ‘Let’s see, we’ll see, we’ll see’!” Regina Böck remembers. They decided to get on with it.
The rooms of the house are now almost empty, the parquet is real, but gray. Next to the kitchen is a large living room with a large balcony. Two more rooms are in the basement, and three large ones upstairs. Franz Böck, who isn’t on the tour of the house, put most of the work into the house, say his wife and Tonnar. They describe him as down-to-earth and pragmatic. Tonnar estimates that the 64-year-old pensioner must have put in at least 60 hours a week clearing out the house in the past month. Regina Böck replies: “I appreciate that about you, that you are so networked, that you work hard and that you are bursting with ideas.” But it was Regina Böck who made the start.
Böck and Tonnar enter the balcony on the upper floor. The view opens onto a gigantic garden with fruit trees and high grass, behind them red roofs, and then the Alps. At the beginning of April, Regina Böck stood alone on the balcony, with a mask and glasses, her body wrapped in a plastic suit. Their goal: to free the wood from all the poisonous pigeon droppings. A few hours later she was holding bags full of excrement in her hand – and felt richer by two and a half thousand euros: That’s how much it would have cost if she had hired a specialist to clean it.
When the weather is good, you can see the mountain range of the Alps from the vicarage.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
In the weeks that followed, Regina Böck, her husband and Marcel Tonnar cleared out the whole house. Two containers full of broken furniture came together. During this time, she hardly bothered about her own home, says Böck and laughs, “now our home looks like this.”
But the trio was not alone. Around 40 Schäftlarners took part in renovating the house, Tonnar and Böck tell us. In addition, many craftsmen from the village offered their services on a voluntary basis or at a reduced rate: a chimney sweep checked the chimney, a glazier replaced the windows, a roofer checked the roof, an electrician checked the pipes, a plumber checked the heating, a floor layer put in new PVC flooring in the hallways, a carpenter was also on duty. “All from the village,” says Böck. Local councilors also got involved, including Maria Reitinger, chairwoman of the Eastern Europe Aid. Some Ukrainians, who will not move in themselves, cleaned the house afterwards.
After a lot of work, the question of renting remained. Böck and Tonnar considered offering the house to the district office. But they saw that some of the houses that had been made available to the district authority for refugees were empty, the two say. However, they don’t have much time to wait, says Tonnar: 80 refugees from the Ukraine are being accommodated in Schäftlarn, and around half of them can stay with their host families in the long term. The others, however, would only have found a temporary home. New living space is therefore urgently needed, also to relieve those families in Schäftlarn who only share their living space with people from the Ukraine to bridge the gap.
The old vicarage is habitable again thanks to the help of many people from Schäftlarn. At the beginning of June, 14 Ukrainian women and children could move in there.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
Marcel Tonnar therefore presented the joint idea to the municipal council last week: the Schäftlarn municipality should bear the rental costs that the ordinariate of the church has now calculated for the renovated rooms. Refugees from the Ukraine will soon be entitled to housing benefit via the job center, which in turn will then be returned to the municipality. However, the municipality is then responsible for the accommodation of the refugees. The rental income goes to the church. However, they are “affordable,” says Tonnar. His proposal met with approval from the city council.
The only thing missing now are the refugees. Around 14 people, about three families, could move in, says Tonnar, in whose own house around 15 Ukrainian refugees stayed during the day for a few weeks. However, it is important that these are women and children who understand each other not only linguistically but also interpersonally: After all, they have to share a single bathroom. Tonnar and Böck therefore want to think about the cast. What is also missing is furniture. But the residents should then choose themselves, says Böck. If all goes well, they could move into their new home as early as June. And that should bring life back to the old house on Starnberger Straße.