Refugees in Berlin: the tent cities are growing, as is the frustration

Refugee housing is full, the housing market is empty, host families are overwhelmed. Berlin is desperate for solutions and is increasingly using closed airports.

The shuttle bus stops right in front of Terminal C. After the driver opens the doors, people get off: older couples, families with children, and solo travelers, some with strollers or trolleys. Security personnel will show you the way into the building.

But it is not holidaymakers or business travelers who come here, but people seeking refuge or asylum. Shortly after the outbreak of war, the former Tegel airport became a reception center for refugees from Ukraine. Here they are registered and given emergency accommodation for the first few nights.

In fact, they should then be distributed in regular housing or rented apartments. But this almost doesn’t happen anymore, says Ruslan, a Ukrainian: “People have been waiting for several months, two or three, for accommodation in regular apartments. Besides, there is no waiting list.”

For weeks in the makeshift camp bed

Berlin’s property market is empty and bureaucratic hurdles for refugees are often high. And so the expected two or three nights in the makeshift dormitory – cramped and with little privacy – often turn into many weeks.

Even the State Office for Refugee Affairs is not satisfied with this situation. “You share the private area with others. That’s not what we really want to offer. But due to the large number of people arriving at the moment, we have no other choice,” says authority spokesman Sascha Langenbach.

It is located in a light, white tent-like hall. Bunk beds are placed around him, cables are laid and curtains are hung. 16 of these temporary halls were built. 3,200 people should find their first refuge here. It is already clear that this will not be enough. Although with around 30,000 beds in state accommodation, more places have been created than ever since 2015.

Desperate for a new home

Those housed in another former airport should have a little more space and privacy. In Tempelhof, two hangars with residential containers have been reactivated as accommodation. The first people are expected to move in this week. More tents will be erected later in the parking lot.

The conversion measures show that the pressure is enormous. Currently around 200 people come to Berlin every day, whether from Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan or other countries, Langenbach calculates: “That means we are talking about 6,000 people in one month. That is why it is absolutely necessary to provide more accommodation here create to prevent homelessness”.

For the winter, Berlin expects the numbers to continue to rise. The state office assumes several thousand additional jobs will have to be created by March.

This challenge is not limited to the federal capital. There is insufficient housing for refugees and asylum seekers throughout Germany. In many places, in recent weeks, the municipalities have had to impose blocking of entrances. This also makes it difficult to move people across national borders. Berlin, for example, can sometimes only distribute ten to 15 people a day to other federal states via the so-called Königstein key.

Host families increasingly overburdened

Were it not for the thousands of volunteers still taking in refugees privately, Berlin would have even greater problems. But private landlords are also running out. Like single parent Kerstin Nickig, who took in a Ukrainian woman six months ago.

“For me, the idea was that I could handle the situation well enough for three months and I obviously wanted to help,” Nickig says. “But it was also clear to me: I don’t want to do this endlessly. And at the moment it feels a bit like that.” He doesn’t want to just send the woman out on the street and leave her to her fate, so now he has to go to a tent.

“People are escaping us,” confirms Anne-Marie Braun from the aid initiative “Schöneberg Helps”. Many would have adapted to short-term help. They assumed that after two or three weeks the state would step in and provide housing “that just doesn’t look like the Tegel tents now,” says Braun.

The Senate does not know how many refugees are still staying with private host families. Braun and many initiatives estimate that there are at least 30,000 to 40,000. According to the national platform wohnung-ukraine.de, the vast majority of accommodation registrations for Ukrainian refugees date back to the early days of the war. Now there is a shortage of supplies, as more and more people who have previously taken in people leave.