What to do with the people | Frankfurt
-
fromJulia Lorenz
conclude
City council discussion on the accommodation and care of refugees.
Frankfurt – The topic couldn’t be more topical: While thousands of migrants hold out in the cold on the border between Poland and Belarus and push into the EU, the city councilors in Frankfurt discussed the humanitarian admission, support and care of refugees yesterday evening. “Nobody leaves their home country voluntarily,” said integration officer Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg (Greens). “We mustn’t leave these people alone. Because nobody is illegal.”
With a proposal from the Greens, SPD, FDP and Volt, the new Roman coalition will ensure that people who have been dying for a long time in communal accommodation can find their own apartment more quickly to make room for newly arriving migrants. To this end, possible accommodation capacities should first be checked and evaluated. In the future, there should be decentralized accommodation for refugees who can use it at short notice if necessary. In addition, existing offers for psychosocial care and trauma support are to be secured and needs analyzed.
“We have to be prepared for the future,” said the social affairs officer Elke Voitl (Greens). “The escape movements will not end. On the contrary.” The city councilor is of the opinion that Frankfurt is generally well positioned to take in refugees. But there are still construction sites. Language acquisition is just as much a problem as school qualifications and accommodation. “We are still a long way from being able to offer people their own apartment in a reasonable time.” The problem: There is a lack of affordable housing.
According to the Department of Social Affairs, a good 3700 refugees are currently living in shared accommodation. Of these, around 3,000 people are housed in emergency and transitional quarters, around 350 in hotels, and another 350 in temporarily used living space. In total, there are around 100 communal accommodations in the urban area, in which refugees and homeless people are accommodated. Since the beginning of the refugee crisis in 2015, Frankfurt has taken in around 8,140 refugees. 4000 of them have already moved into their own apartments.
At the city council meeting at the end of September, Frankfurt declared itself a safe haven, in other words: the city wants to take in more refugees than it actually has to. According to the social services department, Frankfurt has to take in 31 refugees per week in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter it was 13 per week. Reasons for the higher number include the announced humanitarian admission and the increased influx of Afghan local staff.
The CDU parliamentary group supports the coalition’s proposal. “The stronger must stand up for the weaker,” said city councilor Christina Ringer (CDU). However, Christian Democrats die there, more refugees than the federal government. “We don’t see any scope for that,” said Ringer. After all, 10,000 households would already be on the waiting list at the housing office because they are looking for affordable accommodation. Ringer: “We have to use our city’s resources responsibly.”
The SPD parliamentary group leader Ursula Busch did not simply want to accept the criticism of the opposition. “We know this is a huge challenge,” she said. But it is morally right. “The refugees prefer to live in communal accommodation rather than in the cold on a border.”
Markus Fuchs (AfD) called the coalition’s request a “feel-good proposal”, a “self-adulation”. “The application does not solve a problem,” said Fuchs. The request was nevertheless accepted. Only the AfD votes against it. Julia Lorenz