Housing shortage | Homelessness in Berlin: “People are people”

Political theater from the Masketiere art collective is also part of the program for Homeless People's Day in the Vollgut community garden. Photo: Hannah Blumberg Even on the nationwide day of homeless people on September 11th, the topic of homelessness does not receive as much attention as it deserves throughout the year. The Union for Homeless Rights (UFO) has therefore invited people to a “day of encounters, complaints and protests”. In the Vollgut community garden in Neukölln there is a relaxed atmosphere between linocut printing and political theater. However, the visitors to the storytelling café, most of whom were or are affected by homelessness themselves, brought with them questions and demands for the city of Berlin and its politicians. Homeless people don't have a place to live, but they may have a place in accommodation or stay with friends; homeless people don't even have that.

One topic of the event is the elections for the House of Representatives and the district parliaments, which are coming up in just over a week. “The inhibition threshold for homeless people to go to polling stations is high,” says Anthony Renalls. “These people are constantly being brushed off.” As an employee of the Pankow electoral office, he can particularly counteract discrimination in his area and supports UFO and other alliances. On August 27th, Renalls had already organized a postal voting station in the rooms of a day care center on Dunckerstrasse. For the House of Representatives election on September 20th, he would like to make it possible to vote in day care centers and accommodations throughout Berlin.

"Many people haven't voted for decades, some are really excited," says Renalls. The electoral law provides for auxiliary persons who provide support and keep the decision secret. Setting up polling stations in accommodation for the current election is unlikely to be possible in time, even if Renalls wants to fight for it until the end. In any case, the visitors to the event loudly welcomed the idea. The response from the rest of the city's society was also very high, says Renalls.

One person who has already thought about the election is Jens (name changed by the editors). He attends the event and the storytelling café on Friday. »I haven't given notice yet, but that will be coming soon. And that makes you sick,” he says. The reason: personal use. Since Jens is dependent on benefits from the social welfare office, he cannot freely choose where he lives. He has had bad experiences with authorities. “That’s mostly the fault of the clerks,” says Jens. As a member of the Berlin Tenants' Association, he made his voting decision with the help of the tenants' newspaper.

Housing policy is also at the center of the panel discussion that UFO invited. “The housing question is the central social question of our republic, but also of this city,” says Philipp Dehne from the Left. “We have ended up in a rip-off system and we have to fight against it at the level of society as a whole,” says Neukölln district politician and direct candidate for the House of Representatives, with a view to large real estate companies.

The CDU, represented by Neukölln's social councilor Hannes Rehfeldt, sees the demand for expropriation as a phantom debate that will ruin the state of Berlin. »We were able to observe on German soil for many decades what socialism did to a country's housing stock. “That has been straightened out again in the last thirty years with evil capitalist money,” Rehfeldt reacts to a cry of “socialism instead of capitalism” from the audience.

"We experienced dirty, inhumane facilities and discriminatory advice centers, authorities and schools."

Bahar Haghanipour from the Greens supports the expropriation plans. However, she does not support squatting empty houses. It recently became known that homeless people have occupied a former hostel on Friedrichsainer Beltstrasse and are now threatened with eviction. "My party also has a certain history when it comes to squatting in Kreuzberg," says Haghanipour, "but things are evolving." Dehne from the Left, on the other hand, does not believe "that we will take our city back without conflict." When it comes to vacancies, however, Haghanipour definitely sees a need for action, for example in converting office space. CDU politician Rehfeldt believes that converting empty offices is so complicated that it would ultimately be no cheaper than building new ones.

Homeless Day is not just about the Berlin election. UFO and the Society for Freedom Rights (GFF) are presenting a report that the two organizations developed from 74 complaints from homeless and homeless people. Its title offers an obvious solution: “Why Berlin needs a complaints office for homeless and homeless people.”

In 2018, the then red-red-green Berlin Senate decided against a central, specialized complaints office for homeless people. However, the existing registration offices are only responsible in certain cases, are difficult to access for homeless people and do not offer holistic advice. UFO also calls for “social work skills and a deeper understanding of the living situation of homeless and homeless people.”

A deeper understanding like Faisal's. The 16-year-old came from Afghanistan with his family. Together they were houseless and temporarily homeless for six years. "We experienced dirty, inhumane facilities and discriminatory advice centers, authorities and schools," he says. His parents now have an apartment, a job and he is politically active.

Faisal's experiences are also reflected in the report. In three areas, structural rights violations appear to be part of the normal course of action by the police, security forces or authorities. Point one: accommodation. Mareile Dedekind from the GFF says: "Everyone has a right to be accommodated." The state cannot simply put people back into homelessness by putting them out of the shelters and onto the streets, according to the lawyer.

Point 2: Ownership. Tents and sleeping places for homeless people are often mentioned in debates about urban cleanliness. “The property of homeless and homeless people is of course also protected by property rights under the Basic Law,” says Dedekind. So when the police clear accommodation and throw away personal items, they are acting unlawfully. “No matter how objectively things are of little value, they can always have personal value and there can always be important documents in them,” says Dedekind. The state must allow collection before destroying the items without the knowledge of the person concerned.

The BVG is also increasingly implementing measures against homeless people on its trains and stations. "If people obviously have no need for transportation, we will expel them from the train," promised the head of the Berlin S-Bahn Heiko Büttner in the "Tagesspiegel" in May. UFO makes it clear that homeless people in particular rely on public transport “to get to the authorities and various offers of help”. Even with a ticket, they are often turned away. Clear discrimination based on social status, point three of the structural legal violations recorded. “No matter how or where someone lives, people are people,” says Faisal.

Faisal also closely followed the discussion with politicians. He found a few statements from the CDU critical. He himself is active in the SPD, which did not accept UFO's invitation. For Faisal and Jens, affordable rents and housing construction are the most important solutions to homelessness. Faisal still supports the bike tour initiative for homeless people, which provides mobile heat and cold assistance. But what UFO demands in the report is clear: "Ultimately, homeless and homeless people should not be accommodated in emergency accommodation, but should live in their own living space."

The »nd.Genossenschaft« belongs to its readers and authors. They are the ones who make our journalism accessible to everyone through their contribution: We are not backed by a media company, not a large advertising customer or even a billionaire.

With your support we can continue to:

→ report independently and critically → address overlooked topics → give space to marginalized voices → counter misinformation → advance left-wing debates

With “Pay voluntarily” you can take part. You help ensure that this newspaper has a future. So that nd remains.