The sign that hangs on the door to the corridor reads “Keep exit free”, black letters on a yellow background. “That’s because the children always unload their stuff here, so you can hardly get through,” says Amira K. (name changed). The 32-year-old mother lives with her four children in a small three-room apartment in the district. The apartment is old, some of the window panes in the through doors are broken and poorly repaired with adhesive tape. It is also tight, there are piles of clothes in the hallway, dishes in the kitchen, toys in the children’s room.
“Many tears have flowed on both sides.”
In between the children scurry around, between five months and ten years. The youngest daughter is sitting on her mother’s lap in the living room when she starts to talk. “It wasn’t easy the last few years, especially during the lockdown. It’s always going back and forth, one child has to go to school, the other in quarantine. And then the homework, in such a small space … There we often quarreled and many tears flowed on both sides, “reports Amira K.” We are totally exhausted with the situation. “
The older two children, let’s call them James and Melina, come from Mrs. K.’s ex-husband, from whom she has lived separately since 2016: “We never agreed, he just never was there, even before Corona. It it would be nicer if the children could grow up with their father, but now I don’t have the strength to fix it. ” He doesn’t even answer reliably via Skype or WhatsApp. The situation with the father of the other two children, let’s call them Franziska and Emilia, is not easy either. “We were actually already separated, but we pulled ourselves together again during Corona.”
She cannot rely on the maintenance payments
Just as little as she can rely on the care of her father, she can rely on maintenance payments that sometimes come too late, sometimes not at all. The budget is accordingly tight. Amira K. currently lives on Hartz IV, larger expenses are a burden: “I recently bought winter tires, actually too late, but I just couldn’t afford them, and even now that was only possible with support from the district office and by I’ll borrow the rest. ” Then she had herself sterilized, which cost a lot of money that she had to pay for herself. “A young, healthy woman is not supposed to want anyone to do that.”
Franziska and Emilia were not planned, even if they are of course welcome now. “I got pregnant once with the IUD, once on the pill,” reports Amira K .. “What should you do there?” She hid her last pregnancy for a long time. She actually had a job that she then had to turn down. It was frustrating for her. “I want to work, it’s just not possible with the children.” But she hopes to be able to go back to work as soon as possible.
A larger social housing would be nice – but there aren’t many of them
The mother of four also hopes for other things. For example, that the relationship is working out now, she has already gone through a long path of suffering in this regard. “I was abused before too, I don’t want to tell you about who now,” she says. A larger social flat with four rooms would also be nice, “but we were already told that it was impossible, there are simply too few of them. So let’s make ourselves comfortable here,” she says, pointing to the Christmas tree in the living room. The most important thing for her is that everyone stays healthy.
But objects that are everyday for many would also help her a lot: “A shelving system for the children’s room would be great, right now we don’t have anything there. And a new couch too, this one here is now over ten years old, older than James” she says, bobbing up and down on the battered upholstery. When asked, Amira K. admits that a tumble dryer is actually missing. “I don’t want to ask too much,” she adds. At the moment the drying rack is always in the living room because the family naturally produces mountains of laundry. Until Amira K. and her children can move into a new, larger apartment, the family will have their hands full to keep the exit free.