“Providing Winter Emergency Housing for Homeless Individuals in Offenbach: The Diakonie Frankfurt and Offenbach’s Tea Room Program”

There are many reasons for a lack of shelter, often personal crises, separation or divorce or the lack of affordable housing lead to life on the streets. Hardly anyone is voluntarily homeless and yet, according to the Federal Government’s first report on the homeless, which was published for the first time at the end of 2022, around 263,000 people in Germany do not live in their own apartment, 178,000 of them were accommodated in emergency shelters.

The temporary emergency accommodation includes the winter emergency overnight stay in the tea room of the Diakonie Frankfurt and Offenbach at Gerberstraße 15, which started in February 2021. Here, homeless people find protection from frostbite or even a possible cold death. This offer is financed by the city of Offenbach. “This time we had an average of ten guests per night,” reports Thomas Quiring, head of Offenbach’s housing emergency assistance social service. The Diakonie counted a total of 1208 overnight stays in the months of December 2022 to March 31, 2023, the occupancy rate was almost 67 percent, significantly higher than in winter 2021/22. The rate was “only” 35 percent. Quiring attributes the increase to stronger word-of-mouth propaganda. In addition, fewer people stayed in Offenbach without accommodation in the previous year due to the pandemic.

Warm tea, pastries and sleeping bags

There are a total of 15 places on Gerberstraße, the offer is aimed at homeless women, men, couples and various people and is open daily from 8 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. during the winter months. Those who got a place were given one of 50 sleeping bags and could rest on the sleeping pads provided, plus there was warm tea, bread and pastries from the day before, as well as washing facilities and toilets. The proportion of women was almost ten percent, the youngest person staying overnight was 19 years old, the oldest 80 years. The guests came mainly from Germany, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, many of them came regularly to stay overnight. For the third edition of the winter emergency overnight stay, the Diakonie Frankfurt and Offenbach again cooperated with the Caritas Association Offenbach/Main eV and the Malteser relief service. The German Red Cross KV Offenbach, the ecumenical initiative “Social Need in Offenbach” and the Offenbach eV table also support the winter emergency overnight stay. Quring would like to thank the city of Offenbach for financing the winter emergency aid and the other cooperation partners for their support. Frank Weber, head of the city of Offenbach’s public order office, emphasizes the joint effort to protect people from severe hypothermia or even frostbite: “As a last resort, we ensure the accommodation of homeless people when nobody else can take care of them. The offer of the Diakonie is elementary at this point”. The winter emergency shelter is to be offered again next winter.

(Text: PM City of Offenbach)