In many emergency shelters in Hessen it is already “really tight”

FRANKFURT – According to a spokesman for the Hessian Diakonie, it is already “really tight” in many emergency shelters in Hessen, given the increasingly cold nights.

“As a rule, the facilities still have emergency places,” said Stefan Gillich, head of the livelihood security, poverty policy, community diaconal department, the German press agency. In the facilities of the Diakonie Darmstadt, for example, the following applies: “After 5 p.m. no one will be sent away.”

Hygiene concepts and distance rules because of the corona pandemic also restricted the leeway for municipal, church and other institutions that offer emergency sleeping places, said Gillich. A big problem is that many people do not go to the emergency shelters – partly because they fear a corona infection, partly because they cannot stand in the same room with others. In some cases, there are municipalities that, in view of the situation in the emergency shelters, provide additional accommodation in pensions and hotels.

“Accommodation in a four-bed room is no longer possible under Corona rules,” emphasized Elfi Ilgmann-Weiß from the Frankfurt Association for Social Home Centers on the situation in the emergency accommodation in Ostpark. As in the previous two years, there are 150 places available on the B level of the Eschenheimer Tor subway station – subject to minimum distances and a hygiene concept agreed with the health department. Air filters and CO2 traffic lights were purchased. Emergency supplies are provided by the employees of the cold bus, which night after night visits homeless people in the urban area who sleep in the open air.