At Ostbahnhof, tourists pass between bakeries and techno landmarks, snapping photos of East Side Gallery or queuing for Berghain. But for Miriam, this particular corner of Berlin marks something else entirely: it was home. “We lived here for three years,” she tells the group. “It was better than Alexanderplatz. That place was too crazy.”
Originally from Sweden, Miriam became homeless after surviving multiple instances of domestic violence, causing her to flee from Scandinavia to Berlin. One of her most vivid memories from that period was building a Pfand business outside Berghain. “I used to collect bottles after the club nights,” she says. “People were always drinking, and it became a kind of system. You learn when and where to go – how to work with the rhythms of the city.”
Homelessness doesn’t happen to ‘a type of person’. It happens because of many small things – a lost job, a breakup, bad luck. It’s not so far away from anyone
Miriam is one of several formerly homeless Berliners who now lead public walking tours for querstadtein, a local non-profit initiative. Her tour, part of their ‘Homelessness and Life on the Streets’ programme, is centred around Berlin’s most infamous club. She contrasts the two worlds with sharp clarity, describing how the nightlife economy helped her survive while also remaining largely unaware of her presence. “I never went into the clubs, but I lived in their shadows,” she tells the group. “They were part of my routine.” Beyond Berghain, the stories Miriam tells crisscross national borders, train platforms, makeshift shelters and informal encampments. Her tour is both testimony and critique – not a spectacle of poverty tourism, but an act of political storytelling.
Founded in 2013, querstadtein has now led hundreds of impact-focused outings, and with each tour the core principle remains the same: giving people who are usually talked about the chance to speak for themselves. That mission is especially urgent today, says Clemens Poldrack, the organisation’s project manager. In a recent Berliner Zeitung interview, FDP Berlin leader Christoph Meyer called for the deportation of homeless EU citizens, a proposal that was quickly welcomed by the far-right AfD. “We see the political discourse turning more and more right-wing, more antisocial,” Poldrack says. “Usually, this discourse is framed by people who talk about others. Our aim is to create a space where people talk for themselves.”
Sleeping by the Spree
According to government estimates, over half a million people in Germany are homeless. Around 50,000 sleep outside, and roughly one-third are non-German nationals, most of them from other EU countries. That number, however, may be low; as Miriam notes during her tour, much of Berlin’s homelessness is hidden. “There are two words in German for homelessness,” she says: “Obdachlosigkeit is for people ‘sleeping rough’. Wohnungslosigkeit is for people crashing on couches, staying between places. That’s often invisible.” Miriam emphasises that attempts at counting Berlin’s homeless population are as good as futile, given homeless people’s often-nomadic lifestyle.
Poldrack agrees. “We know the number of people who are officially homeless. There are also many people in unstable housing – especially EU citizens who have no legal right to shelter here.”
For Miriam, being unhoused in Berlin meant learning how to navigate not only unfamiliar geography, but danger. She leads her tour through a covered garage by Ostbahnhof where she occasionally took refuge. “It was well-lit. It had a camera. And if someone bothered me, there was a way to get help.” There were people around, Miriam says. “That was important.” Her concern isn’t abstract; a few months ago, four people lifted a sleeping man and threw him into the river with all his things. Miriam recounts that “he survived only because someone pulled him out”.
Later on the tour, Miriam shares her experience building a makeshift home in an unoccupied grassy area near Berghain during the pandemic. Government land, she explains, holds the lowest risk of constant eviction. Despite the hardships she faced, there were moments of kindness there. “The man from the district office came,” she says, “and said he knew we were there. He said we should try to keep things clean and not make anything permanent. Then he brought us a [portable] toilet and toilet paper.”
Miriam also spent time living along the Spree, near the East Side Gallery. “People knew us. The neighbours were kind,” she says. She spent her days creating chalk drawings and arranging bottles into playful patterns. At this memory, Miriam lights up. “Sometimes people from other countries would ask about it [and] why we were doing it. It helped start conversations.” She also kept a guitar with her, using art and music as ways to engage passersby and build a sense of visibility. “I slept here,” she tells the group as they walk along the river, gesturing to the embankment a few metres from the water.
Thinking outside the box
Querstadtein has been running guided tours about homelessness in Berlin since 2013, in both German and English, offering a more complex – and more human – account of homelessness in the city. Two years in, the organisation expanded its focus to include refugee experiences, and more recently, it began developing tours centred on climate migration. Today, around 20 regular guides lead tours for school groups, companies and curious individuals. Most guides join querstadtein through word of mouth, often hearing about it via other NGOs, social workers or formerly homeless contacts. Each tour takes months to design. “It’s a long process,” Poldrack explains. “We spend time building trust. Then we go through a kind of biography work, finding out what themes matter most to that person and what places in the city help tell that story.”
The tours, he emphasises, are not meant to be encyclopaedic. “Often, someone says, ‘I don’t have anything to say.’ But then suddenly there’s too much. We have to make hard decisions about what to include. Not everything fits in 90 minutes.” That process, Poldrack adds, is “sometimes tearful”. Poldrack helped develop Miriam’s tour, which they dubbed ‘Living in the shadow of Berlin’s nightlife’, back in 2023.
While many of querstadtein’s tour participants are sympathetic before they arrive, not all are. “About half of our groups come through schools,” says Poldrack. “Sometimes the students are sceptical, even bored. They didn’t choose to be there. But often, something shifts. If even one or two people see the world differently afterward, it’s a success.”
Asked whether the group has tried to reach more conservative or politically apathetic audiences, Poldrack is frank: “It’s hard. We haven’t been directly attacked, but we know that kind of engagement is difficult. That’s why we focus on education – on reaching people before their views harden.” He believes that querstadtein’s efforts to humanise homelessness can make a difference in how people view the world around them. “This work matters,” Poldrack says. “It doesn’t show up in numbers, but it shifts something in people. That’s where change starts.”
Still, he’s concerned that current political proposals – like suggestions to deport unhoused EU citizens – risk undermining not only basic compassion, but the European Union itself. “This idea destroys the principle of the EU,” he says. “If you start dividing people by citizenship, you’re not solving the problem. You’re just displacing it.” More fundamentally, he says, it misunderstands the nature of homelessness itself. “Each person’s story is different. Homelessness doesn’t happen to ‘a type of person’. It happens because of many small things – a lost job, a breakup, bad luck. It’s not so far away from anyone.”
If you start dividing people by citizenship, you’re not solving the problem. You’re just displacing it.
Poldrack also pushes back on well-meaning but misguided charity. “People give food without asking if it’s what someone needs,” he says. “They don’t ask if the person is hungry. Maybe they need water. Maybe money. Maybe just to be seen.” His suggestion: start small. “Smile. Make eye contact. If you’ve seen someone a few times, say hello. Ask what would help.”
Towards the end of her tour, Miriam reflects on her own trajectory since finding more stable housing. “I haven’t had a drink in nine months,” she says. “I’m not sure I could have done that on the street. On the streets, everyone’s problems get mixed together. You don’t have a lot of time for self reflection: you put that aside because you’re thinking about survival today. You’re not reflecting on your problems.” In that sense, housing is more than shelter: it’s the precondition for rebuilding a life.
While Miriam doesn’t romanticise the time she lived outside, often struggling with her health and suffering through Berlin’s harsh weather, she also challenges simple ideas about what a home should look like. “People live in different ways all over the world,” she says. “Maybe we need to think a little outside the box.”
- For more information or to donate, visit querstadtein
