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fromAnja Laud
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For many homeless people, the winter months are the hardest time of the year. At Tagestreff 17-Ost, homeless women get a break from life on the street.
A gray December morning, it is drizzling, the cold creeps through the thick winter jacket. An older, neatly dressed woman in a mask rings the doorbell of the Center for Women on Alfred-Brehm-Platz. When she hears the buzzer, she pushes the door open, pulls her shopping trolley, which contains all of her possessions, behind her and takes a few steps across a corridor to the day meeting point 17-Ost of the Diakonisches Werk for Frankfurt and Offenbach. Around 60 women will follow her during the day. They are all homeless and happy to be able to escape life on the street for at least a few hours.
A cardboard sign reading “Please disinfect your hands” hangs in the entrance area of the day care center, which is only open to women. Olga Becker greets the elderly woman in a friendly manner and uses an infrared thermometer to measure her forehead without contact to see whether she has a fever. Then the social worker asks her which service she would like to use in the facility. Would she like to take a shower, prepare a warm meal for herself in the kitchen? Or check your e-mails in one of the two PC rooms? Does she want to look for clothes in the clothes closet? Olga Becker enters the woman’s wishes in a list. Then she can sit down at one of the numbered tables decorated with Advent decorations in the lounge and have a hot coffee.
The women can also check their emails in the computer room.
© Renate Hoyer
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Everyday life at Tagestreff 17-Ost follows fixed rules due to the corona pandemic. The Diakonisches Werk has developed a hygiene concept together with the health department of the city of Frankfurt to protect homeless women and the staff working in the facility from infection. For example, only two women are allowed to be in the two PC rooms at the same time, as is the kitchen.
The list that social worker Becker keeps at the entrance of the meeting determines who is allowed to do what and at what time. The numbering of the tables in the lounge ensures that every visitor knows where their seat is. Masks are required in the facility. Only those who sit at a table can remove the face mask.
Luise Pötzschke, who is also a social worker at Tagestreff 17-Ost, is not afraid of being infected, and the homeless women – most of them are over 40 years old – have no concerns either, she reports. In the Diakonie facilities, nobody has been infected with Corona so far, says Karin Kühn, who heads the Diaconal Services department at the Diakonisches Werk for Frankfurt and Offenbach. If employees are sick, it is because they have become infected in their private environment.
With the beginning of December, Tagestreff 17-Ost extended its opening hours so that the visitors could be better distributed throughout the day and there would be no clusters. “It is important that everything is evened out,” explains Karin Kühn. The facility is now open on five instead of four days, i.e. from Monday to Friday. In addition, the daily opening times have been extended by one and a half hours. Women can now find shelter at Alfred-Brehm-Platz from 11.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
So far, the hygiene concept has prevented infections with the coronavirus in the house.
© Renate Hoyer
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Very few who come there you can tell that they are homeless. “Unlike men who openly admit that they are homeless, women do not want to attract attention. They don’t want everyone to know that they are homeless, ”says Luise Pötzschke. Anonymity is important to them. Most of them no longer have a home due to personal crises, they have lost their jobs, a relationship has broken or a traumatic experience has made them lose their hold in life.
In order not to have to spend the night on the street, they sleep with friends on the couch, in the car or, in an emergency, use accommodation for the homeless. “These women don’t need our pity. You deserve our respect and our sympathy, ”emphasizes Luise Pötzschke.
The social worker expects the number of homeless women to increase as a result of the pandemic. Many women who work in the low-wage sector, for example as waitresses in cafes or restaurants, lose their jobs and, if they did not receive financial support, their homes too.
Luise Pötzschke believes that understanding for the homeless is increasing now in the pandemic. “Most can now imagine how quickly it can happen that you end up on the street.”
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