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For fear of a cold winter

Exactly 43 colorful sleeping bags are hanging on clotheslines above the heads of the visitors in the stairwell of the Museum of Arts and Crafts.

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For fear of a cold winter

Exactly 43 colorful sleeping bags are hanging on clotheslines above the heads of the visitors in the stairwell of the Museum of Arts and Crafts. They commemorate the 43 people who died on the streets of Hamburg last year. Within sight of the ZOB, one of the city's most unsightly, violent and desolate places for those who don't know where to meet, is the Who's Next? Homelessness, Architecture and the City”. Homelessness, as shown there, is a global problem that has been exacerbated everywhere by the crises of recent years - and local solutions are needed.

In Hamburg about 2000 people live on the streets. For them, the annual winter emergency program that the city set up 30 years ago to protect homeless people in the cold months starts on November 1st. Additional overnight accommodation and shuttles from the city center to the facilities will be made available for this purpose by the end of March. This year could be a particularly difficult one for the homeless, for a number of reasons.

On the one hand, there is the large number of refugees who have come to Hamburg in recent months. Homeless people and those seeking protection are housed in municipal accommodation, but due to the influx of people, places are now extremely tight. In the search for new places for refugees, the city now uses all options, from hotels to former supermarket halls.

According to the social authorities, up to 390 emergency overnight places available all year round in the Pik As and the emergency overnight accommodation for women in Hinrichsenstraße are intended for homeless people, supplemented by 400 places in Hammerbrook and 300 in a former hotel in Billbrook, both operated by the municipal company Fördern

In addition, there is an apparently increasingly precarious situation for people on the street, increasingly visible in many places such as the bus station. This week, the head of the central district office, Ralf Neubauer, invited to a crisis summit, which was attended by political representatives and the police, as well as retailers and street social workers. Jörn Sturm, managing director of the street magazine "Hinz und Kunzt", was also there.

He says: "Almost all participants agreed that impoverishment on the streets of Hamburg has increased and that something needs to be done." . In the near future there will be further dates, which will deal with low-threshold, needs-based offers for homeless people who are entitled to benefits.

Some places are no longer available this year. There were 224 places in the forging paddock last winter to enable pandemic-appropriate occupancy at high occupancy rates. According to the social authorities, this alternative was not used enough. The day-care center in the market hall at the main train station has also been cancelled. Social associations, among others, have been demanding additional daily offers in the winter emergency program for years. However, the social authorities reject this, since it is only about protection against frostbite at night.

"It's bitter," says Jörn Sturm from "Hinz und Kunzt". "As if the only right is not to freeze to death. People also have the right to a decent life.” He also regularly receives complaints about beggars. The fact that they get a perspective is a concern for society as a whole. "From experience with our hotel projects, for example, which were financed with donations last year, we know that shelters that offer reliability and a home have a stabilizing function and get the homeless off the streets."

Social Senator Melanie Leonhard (SPD), on the other hand, argues: “Anyone who needs help gets an offer. For this we run a winter emergency program with a very high standard. Because only those who have them can live permanently in public accommodation. But apparently that's not enough.

Because the city's efforts were not enough for some even then, the Winter Emergency Program for the Homeless was founded 15 years ago. The authorities do not provide any catering in the overnight accommodations, which is why some volunteers make sure that there is dinner in the evenings after their full-time jobs. This is financed by donations, which, despite the increased cost of living after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, remain fairly constant, according to Chairwoman Irena Jacobsen. However, she fears "that it could become difficult if food prices continue to rise".

In the citizenship, the topic of homelessness is on the agenda several times for the coming week: The Committee for Social Affairs, Labor and Integration reports on the evaluation of the last winter emergency program. In addition, the motion by the Greens and SPD parliamentary groups to support a pension for job-seeking immigrants from EU countries, as announced in the coalition agreement, is being discussed. Homelessness should be counteracted with rapid integration into the labor market.

The MPs refer to figures from 2018, according to which around two-thirds of the homeless in Hamburg do not have German citizenship and 71 percent of those surveyed said they came to Hamburg to find work here. In an application, the left calls for the accommodation of the winter emergency program to be opened all day and to offer more single rooms and places for people with dogs. Around five percent of the homeless have a dog with them and are not allowed to take it to the facilities operated by Fördern und Wohnen.

But outside on the street there are few publicly accessible, covered, wind-protected places to stay overnight. The symbol for this is the trailer with a pitched roof that has been changing its location since the spring. Companies can rent its advertising space and at the same time it offers protection from wind and weather. "Hinz und Kunzt" bought the trailer with socket and emergency call button together with the advertising agency Philipp und Keuntje. He should be at FC St. Pauli over the winter.

The left-wing rapper “Disarstar”, whose real name is Gerrit Falius, recently attracted attention on social media with an action against architecture hostile to the homeless. He had flexed metal brackets from a surface at the Hotel "Empire Riverside" in St. Pauli and placed a mattress, blanket and pillow there. In a video, he criticized the "massive investor and tourist-friendly expansion of the city center".

The exhibition in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe shows how architecture and urban planning can – on the contrary – even help to combat homelessness and help those affected . And make it clear: Each municipality has to decide for itself how places can look like where homeless people want to stay instead of living on the streets.

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