The people in charge of the Familien-Haus association in Unterföhring are overjoyed: the municipal council approved by a large majority to provide the initiative with rooms for its activities. In the future, the association will hold its courses, counseling hours and meetings in a former family home on Tulpenstraße and will be able to expand the range of services. After months of debates, Unterföhring is getting the central point of contact for families that many people want.
Benjamin Röck and Kathrin Abel from the Familien-Haus board had contacted the Unterföhring local politicians and asked them to make the small house on Tulpenstrasse, which is currently vacant and owned by the municipality, available until further notice. Committed parents and active people founded the association in 2019 with the aim of “promoting and supporting Unterfoehringer families in a social way”, as the homepage says. To this end, the activists have set up a large number of offers that are close to where they live, uncomplicated and openly accessible to all interested parties of different age groups, including midwife consultation hours, open meetings for families and single parents to get to know each other and network, but also advice on topics such as separation and divorce, active parenting, or parenting issues. The club’s offer is in great demand, as Unterföhring in the Munich district is one of the municipalities with a particularly low average age of residents.
From the beginning, the Familien-Haus-Verein had the goal of establishing a family center with its offer in the community. In view of the existing offers, however, the town hall leadership did not see the need for this as a given for a long time. The disappointment among the initiators was great when, in autumn 2021, the majority of the Unterföhringer municipal council rejected the request to temporarily let the association use the vacant rooms of the daycare center at Föhringer Allee 13 for its open meeting. The negative attitude of the community was also a reason for the resignation of the co-founder and long-time chairwoman Tanja Gernet in the summer of 2022.
The board hopes for funding from the district and the Free State
The joy of the active members of the association is all the greater that the family house is no longer just a subtenant in changing rooms, but will in future have an entire building available on Tulpenstraße. “We already have many plans as to how we can turn Tulpenstraße 10 into a lively meeting place with a wide range of offers for all Unterfoehringer families,” announced the association’s board of directors on the homepage. You now have the opportunity to make the program even more flexible and to develop an even stronger sense of belonging to the family house through the well-known contact point at the Unterföhringer, said Abel. With the property provided by the municipality, the board of the association also hopes to be able to receive further funding from the district and the Free State.
The house on Tulpenstrasse is in a residential area and has already been made child-friendly, since childminders had recently looked after the children there. The association wants to use the two rooms on the upper floor primarily for its courses and open meetings, the former living room on the ground floor is to be used as a consultation room and office; The club also looks forward to being able to use the garden when the weather is nice.
The Modelleisenbahnfreunde Unterföhring had also applied to use the property on Tulpenstraße; However, the municipal council rejected their application in December – among other things, pointing out that the building would be better suited for the family home. However, the town hall administration agreed to support the model railway fans in their search for a new place to live.