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Very close to glass skyscrapers re are small, self-made wooden huts. They are sealed with old mattresses. Before that: shopping cart filled with empty bottles, broken bicycles, metal scrap. There is no sanitary facilities or water supply. This is also Frankfurt, banking metropolis on main. What looks like a piece of Brazilian favela, is a metallurgical camp on an industrial wasteland not far from main station of Frankfurt am Main.
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Here in district of Gutleut have lived for months about 30 people, until police cleared camp. Almost all former residents are Roma. In recent years y have built small slums in shadow of Frankfurt skyline. Many came only to sleep, early in morning y broke up, collected deposit bottles, went begging or tried to earn some money anyway. Like or homeless people in or German cities.
In Düsseldorf, about ten people slept in self-built huts next to railway tracks until end of March, in Hamburg ir camp consisted only of mattresses under a bridge. In Berlin, dozens of homeless people lived in abandoned gazebos a few years ago and in autumn a tent village in Berlin Tiergarten made headlines. A small slum in rich Germany.
Many migrants land on street
For years, number of homeless in Federal Republic has been increasing. Last autumn, Federal Association of Homeless Help (BAGW) estimated that in addition to approximately 440,000 homeless refugees, about 420,000 more people had no leased housing. Most of m live in shelters, dormitories or friends. Estimated 52,000 sleep on street. Ten years ago, this figure was still at 20,000. The main reasons for increase are, according to BAGW, increasing poverty and housing shortage.
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But immigration also plays a role. Mainly migrants from Eastern Europe live on streets, in large cities ir share according to BAGW is now around 50 percent. This is because, in many cases, y do not have right to social benefits. At end of 2015, Federal Social Court decided that unemployed Europeans would be entitled to welfare benefits at latest after a stay of six months in Germany. Since end of 2016, requirements have been stricter. The n Labor minister and today’s SPD chief Andrea Nahles decided that y would only get help if y lived here for five years or worked here for a year.
The entitlement to long-term housing in case of homelessness is also linked to social benefits. Anyone who is legally resident here because of EU’s freedom of movement, but does not find any official work, will quickly land on streets. And so informal hut villages and mattress camps are mostly inhabited by Eastern Europeans, especially by Roma. There are no official figures eir in BAGW or in federal government, but cases that have become public are indicative.
