The Hamburger drew a sad conclusion for the still young year 2026 Street magazine Hinz&Kunzt. By January 14th they were already in the city eleven homeless people died. According to the police, five people without a permanent address died in hospitals or city emergency shelters. Six others were found dead outside. Most recently, the police found a dead man in a tent on the Lombardsbrücke on the Outer Alster on January 13th.
“The sudden increase in deaths is unusual and alarming,” the magazine writes. According to official city figures, in previous years there had never been more than 70 deaths. But if you extrapolate the number from the first two weeks of January, you would get more than 260. Hopefully it won’t get that bad. But the health of people on the streets has deteriorated dramatically.
The balance sheet was drawn Hinz&Kunzt after the end of the first cold wave in northern Germany. But the low temperatures are just coming back. According to weather forecasts, Hamburg is facing nights with minus 4 to minus 6 degrees. In Hanover, homeless people are allowed to stay overnight in the Kröpke subway station when the outside temperature is minus 3 degrees.
Hinz&KunztManaging director Jörn Sturm is now demanding that this should also be made possible in cold weather in Hamburg. “It’s an absurdity when people freeze to death on the streets in Hamburg,” he says. The state has a duty of care for the homeless. That’s why the city needs “warm places at all times of the day and night that are available at short notice” for people who live on the streets in winter.
Required to stay in subway stations
To achieve this, the existing aid facilities needed additional resources and personnel. “And we need a threshold above which the subway stations are open to people at night,” he says Hinz&Kunzt-Managing Director. “We also need a clear information chain so that the aid facilities, the homeless and the Hochbahn employees know about it and the Hochbahn does not drive people away.”
That’s how I got it Hinz&Kunzt-Editorial staff received information from Hamburg City Hall before the snowstorm “Elli” on January 8th that people would not be driven out of subway stations. “But it took too long for the Hochbahn press office to assure us that this was the case.” But in dangerous weather, you need quick editing “so that this information also reaches the security staff.”
In Hanover, homeless people are allowed to stay overnight in the Kröpke subway station when the outside temperature is minus 3 degrees
On Wednesday, the taz asked the transport authorities, the social authorities and the Hamburger Hochbahn whether homeless people would be allowed to sleep in subway stations at night again in view of the cold. And whether such an information chain is planned. There was no response as of press time. And the question of whether there have been further deaths since January 14th could not be clarified on Wednesday.
There is one in Hamburg in winter two large accommodations with around 700 beds. In view of the number of deaths, the German Social Association (SoVD) demanded that Hamburg the accommodation of homeless people repositioned. “I find it very tragic that the help that the city is giving these people obviously does not reach many of them,” says state chairman Klaus Wicher.
Criticism of collective accommodation
“We keep hearing that not only women but also many men don’t want to go to collective accommodation in the winter,” says Wicher. They don’t feel safe there because the atmosphere is characterized by alcohol and violence. But there could be no alternative to “sleeping on the street in the freezing cold and risking freezing to death.”
Hamburg’s Social Senator Melanie Schlotzhauer (SPD) should therefore re-evaluate the issue of collective accommodation. “In my opinion, the idea of offering many people overnight accommodation in one place comes from old times, when homelessness was primarily male-dominated,” said Wicher. “This view of the topic is no longer relevant.” More housing-first offers are needed.
The responsible social authority explained this to the Hamburger Abendblatta general criticism of collective accommodation falls short. The accommodation of homeless people is much more differentiated than before. “Clear rules apply in the overnight accommodations of the winter emergency program,” said their spokesman Wolfgang Arnhold: “For example, a ban on the consumption of alcohol and addictive substances, and security personnel are permanently present.”
The winter emergency program also has two- and three-bed rooms with lockable cupboards and also single rooms for vulnerable people. According to the authority, there are no plans to change the structure of the winter emergency program.