“The hard-earned taxpayers’ money in Berlin are thoughtlessly wasted, or spent on the integration industry,” the deputy chairman Ronald Glaeser told a Berlin weekly.
The background to his complaint is the decision of the Berlin authorities to demolish a container village in the district of Pankow, which had been inhabited by asylum seekers since October 2017.
Social Senator Elke Breitenbach (Left Party) announced the government’s new strategy to accommodate migrants in modular buildings and regular apartments.
Overall, the accommodation project has cost taxpayers 14,5 million euros, according to information from the Berliner Morgenpost.
If one divides this value by the number of overnight stays (95 000), the costs per night per migrant there amount to 150 euros, while the target is 20 to 30 euros per night per migrant.
At the same time, the authorities are planning a new modular shelter for migrants about three kilometers from the facility in question. This will bring “millions of new costs for Berlin,” complains Glaeser. “It can not be that the Senate closes an accommodation while at the same time planning a new, more luxurious one and thus even more expensive than one down the road – and the costs are getting out of hand.”
The city justified the additional costs with the shortage of space at the beginning of the migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016. At that time it was decided to build so-called Tempohomes on some properties with special building rights.
Altogether, Berlin has invested 160 million euros in housing containers for migrants. However, since the housing was built according to special building laws, they were only approved for three years. Of the 25 000 places in the 77 shared accommodation centres for asylum seekers, 22 000 are currently occupied, according to Morgenpost. For 2019 they expect a total demand of 26 365, at the end of 2020 there will be 36 765 and 2021 there will be 27 704 persons housed in such centres.
For Glaeser, therefore, a “fundamental change in the asylum policy” is needed. The key to easing the housing situation for asylum seekers and reducing costs for citizens is “a halt to illegal mass immigration and an increase in the number of deportations”.