Mayor in Bavaria demands housing for Moria migrants

OLCHING. The Upper Bavarian city of Olching has called on property owners to provide their apartments for Moria migrants. “Since we unfortunately cannot offer any living space ourselves, we have to rely on Olchingers who own living space to make it available. I very much hope that in this way we can at least offer a few people a new, safe home,” said Mayor Andreas Magg (SPD) according to Merkur .

“If we took in three or four families, that wouldn't be noticed at all in Olching with its 30,000 inhabitants. But it would be a nice sign of humanity and solidarity,” added Magg. The migrants from the Greek camps could not be taken to the accommodations of the Upper Bavarian government, as they would not come to Germany via regular asylum procedures.

"Olching Asylum Helping Group" refers to the admission of displaced persons

The “Olching Asylum Helping Group” called for the initiative. He criticized the federal government's decision to accept up to 3,000 Moria migrants as too weak. "That is shameful for a country with 80 million inhabitants." The immigration advocates hope that more asylum seekers will be flown in if the local authorities show that they are ready. Other communities have already done this, which is why the Olching community should show "solidarity with the refugees".

The "Helping Group" argued, among other things, with the "long and lived tradition of accepting refugees" in the Upper Bavarian city. In 1950 more than 1,400 displaced persons were registered in Olching with around 7,800 residents. Since 2013, the city has housed and looked after more than a thousand “refugees”. One can be proud of that.

Migrants increase pressure on the housing market
Housing migrants has led to more pressure on the real estate market, especially in cities, since 2015. At the beginning of last year, the Schleswig-Holstein city of Rendsburg asked the district to allocate fewer refugees to the city. According to the city administration, the reunification of family members has reduced living space.

The real estate group Vonovia estimated in 2019 that one in ten new tenants was now an asylum seeker. "In the last two years we have rented around ten percent of the apartments that became available to people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq."

If private landlords accommodate people who have asylum or protection status, the social welfare offices or municipalities usually pay the costs. In Berlin, for example, after the wave of refugees in 2015, a market for housing migrants had developed. Landlords received up to 3,500 euros a month for providing rooms.

Source: Junge Freiheit