The emergency shelter for the homeless should be rebuilt, but the previous principle should remain: central accommodation for currently around 130 people in the same place.
On the other hand, there was criticism.
Regensburg - Slowly but surely Regensburg's social mayor Astrid Freudenstein (CSU *) seems to be pushing through against the previous line of the government coalition.
In the middle of the year, Freudenstein had turned against the new construction of the central emergency shelter for the homeless in Aussiger Straße, which had already been decided in 2020.
Instead, the mayor advocated smaller, decentralized units spread across the city.
On the one hand, this is cheaper and, on the other hand, it offers those affected the opportunity to regain a foothold without the stigma of “Aussiger Straße” and to find their way back into the regular housing market.
Decentralized emergency housing in Regensburg: Criticism from the coalition partner, approval from the experts
Within the coalition of CSU, SPD, FDP, Free Voters and CSB, it did not initially gain approval for this. Freudenstein's move "possibly arouses hopes among those affected [...] who today no one knows whether they can be fulfilled," the SPD * said at the time. Apparently there was no alternative to a new building solution. But Freudenstein persevered. “Where there is a will, there is also a way,” said the mayor.
The mayoress received support from residents in Aussiger Straße and from Reinhard Kellner, managing director of the social initiatives in Regensburg *.
There are currently around 131 people in the run-down apartment blocks from the 1950s, including over 50 children.
A renovation of the four existing buildings is unprofitable due to the poor building fabric.
The houses built in 1952/53 are to be demolished.
So far there are sometimes no toilets in the apartments, four residential units share showers in the basement, there are major problems with mold growth.
Decentralized emergency housing: a better way out of "the vicious circle of poverty"
Freudenstein and Reinhard Kellner see it that way too, but: A decentralized concept is far better suited “to get them out of the vicious circle of poverty and neglect” than a 23 million euro new building, said Kellner in June.
There was no reaction from the coalition, but no new proposal either, but internally there seems to have been a lot of movement. In the draft for the new investment program, which was discussed last week in the finance committee of the Regensburg city council, there is now the sentence that “under certain circumstances, a new building at another location
(possibly at Augsburger Strasse 37) or distributed decentrally several locations "will take place.
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Both Green Party leader Stefan Christoph and City Councilor Thomas Thurow (Brücke) criticized the coalition's approach at the committee meeting.
Without a valid city council resolution, changes would simply be made via the investment program in this way, without a substantive debate being possible. The “fixed ideas of the social mayor” contradict the current resolution, according to Christoph.
"Bad style" is that.
Exact solution still unclear, but: "In any case, it takes money."
The mayor tried to appease. Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer believes that there is no need for a new resolution regarding the emergency housing complex. Costs would arise for both a centralized and a decentralized solution. In addition: "Not everything that is in the investment program is slavishly erected at the same time, even if we no longer consider it necessary." not, one will see that. "In any case, it takes money."
An investment volume of around 19 million is currently planned.
Where exactly this money is to be invested and where the decentralized residential units can be found remains unclear.
But apparently the days of a central emergency shelter for the homeless in Regensburg * seem to be numbered for the foreseeable future.
* Merkur.de / bayern is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA