Refugee accommodation: Aid group warns of ghettoization
Created: 12/17/2022 13:03
By: Sabina Brosch
Will probably be growing soon: The accommodation for asylum seekers on Echinger Weg will be expanded to include a container facility.
Up to 198 refugees can be accommodated in 99 residential containers.
© sab
The refugee accommodation on Echinger Weg in Garching is to be expanded by 198 beds.
However, the city has a condition for the expansion.
Garching – The city council spoke unanimously in favor of accommodating new refugees on Echinger Weg.
However, he attaches one condition to this: A care concept must be in place.
In the long term, however, the city must build social housing.
Almost 400 refugees are currently living in Garching, 178 in state accommodation, and many Ukrainians are housed privately.
Since the flow of refugees, especially from Syria or Afghanistan, is currently increasing again due to numerous trouble spots, the district office is desperately looking for further accommodation.
Therefore, the existing one on Echinger Weg will be expanded by 99 residential containers with 198 beds.
Other alternatives, such as Heideweg or Professor-Angermair-Ring, were excluded from the discussion because they either do not have to be developed or basically have to be built on first.
Mayor: "Security is not enough"
The expansion on Echinger Weg, on the other hand, can be implemented quickly and most economically.
The circle of helpers also sees the advantages here that synergies can be used and that supermarkets are also available in the immediate vicinity.
However, he warns against ghettoization and also against oversizing with 400 residents.
Mayor Dietmar Gruchmann (SPD) and the city councilors want to attach conditions to the expansion on Echinger Weg.
It is urgently necessary that an accommodation management is present on site from the beginning.
"Pure security is not enough," emphasized Gruchmann.
It's about keeping the accommodation in perfect condition, but also about social things, "since many people with different languages and different cultural backgrounds meet here".
City councilors also agreed that the accommodation is in urgent need of refurbishment.
"The older accommodation is really in bad condition," said Ulrike Haerendel (SPD).
"We have to take the opportunity to upgrade it." In principle, Haerendel would have preferred accommodation at Angermair-Ring,
“then the children could have grown up in the midst of urban society.
That would have symbolic character.”
Old accommodation to be renovated
It is also important to the city councilors that asylum seekers who have been living with their families in small rooms and a toilet in the corridor for many years in the existing accommodation should not be treated less favorably than the newcomers.
According to Gruchmann, more and more singles are currently arriving in Munich.
It makes no sense to him that they would be accommodated in the new, family-friendly accommodation.
Bastian Dombret's (FDP) question about the capacity in day-care centers and schools was able to reassure Gruchmann that a classroom was free in the West primary school and there was also space for the grammar school, "but whether and how many children come to Garching, it's like reading a crystal ball."
However, the urgent need for accommodation is also triggered by the "false occupants" in the refugee accommodation: Recognized asylum seekers who should have left the accommodation a long time ago but cannot find any apartments.
"We urgently need social housing for this," emphasized Norbert Fröhler (BfG).
He predicted conflicts for the coming years: "At some point there will be a bang." For a short-term solution, he suggested thinking about tiny apartments.
In doing so, he found open ears from Gruchmann, who, however, relies on the 7,000 square meter area in the communication zone, which is secured for social housing construction.
More news from Garching and the district of Munich can be found here.
