Thursday, May 22
Berlin fall short in planned shipping container “villages” for refugees
According to the plan, Berlin was to create 16 new shipping container villages, providing emergency accommodation for around 6,100 refugees. However, it appears the city will fall well short of that target, with 2,500 of the planned spaces unlikely to materialise.
The goal was for Berlin to establish ten of these emergency “villages” this year. So far, the only one nearing completion is on Grünauer Straße in the district of Treptow-Köpenick. Here, cranes lift the shipping containers into vacant lots where, over the coming months, accommodation will be provided for more than 300 refugees in 172 separate containers.
The shortfall is due to two main factors: firstly, the shelters being built do not accommodate as many people as originally planned, leading to a loss of 1,000 places from the 6,100 target. A further 1,500 places will be lost simply because four of the planned sites have been cancelled—either because the land was not available or due to objections from Deutsche Bahn on safety grounds. The viability of a fifth location, at the former Tegel Nord airport, remains uncertain.
Some of the lost capacity will be added to existing facilities at Tempelhofer Feld, but there are already 2,000 refugees living there in emergency housing. This has led to concerns about overcrowding, similar to what has already been seen at the accommodation facility in Tegel.
