The first homeless people start arriving at Berlin's Tabor church half an hour before it opens its doors. Once a week, the church hosts a cafe where homeless people can eat, drink and use the toilet. It soon hopes to offer hot meals, too.

It also lets people sleep inside the church once a week to escape the bitterly cold winter nights of the German capital. Mostly around 40 people bed down in the vestibule, although sometimes there are as many as 60. They also get food, and two volunteer doctors are also on hand to tend wounds or treat other ailments.

The people who come looking for a place to sleep are not the same as those who frequent the cafe, Tabor Church pastor Sabine Albrecht said.

"Those who fall through social safety nets can come here," she said. "Some of them are in a very desolate state."

'Serious social problem'

Many people who are looking for somewhere to sleep come from Eastern Europe and are either unemployed or precariously employed. Many have addiction issues, have experiences of violence and suffer from mental illness.

One man, Albrecht said, "has been sleeping here for 20 years." Two of her "guests," as she calls them, have passed away.

How does she deal with so much misery? "A helper syndrome does no good. You need to be tough and not take things personally," Albrecht said.

This also means being able to deal with people who can be aggressive and rude, something that Margot Moser, who has helped organize the overnight stays since the church first offered the service 30 years ago, is capable of. The 79-year-old says that maybe she feels called to help because she has always had to make do with little money herself.

"Homelessness is a serious social problem," Werena Rosenke, managing director of the German Association for Homeless Assistance (BAG W), told DW. She sees a dramatic shortage in affordable housing as the main reason for homelessness.

Preventing homelessness key

BAG W is the national umbrella organization for emergency housing assistance services and facilities in Germany. According to its most recent data, 607,000 people were homeless in Germany in 2022. Of these, around 50,000 were living on the street.

The Federal Statistical Office only records homeless people registered in facilities and calculates that there Germany has 372,060 such residents.

The large difference in the two statistics has to do with how the numbers are compiled. BAG W's numbers are collected throughout the entire calendar year, rather than on certain days, and they also include data on so-called concealed homelessness, such as people who are staying with friends or family after losing their home.

"Prevention is the most important thing," Rosenke said. "We have to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place. Many don't even know that they can apply for housing benefits or how to apply for a citizen's allowance." It would be cheaper for local authorities if they took over rent debt instead of financing what are often overnight stays in hotels or other accommodation, she said.

Rosenke rattled off several relatively inexpensive measures for fighting homelessness. For example, facilitating the purchase of housing stock from private landlords and the housing industry. Or the refurbishment of emergency accommodation and their conversion into social housing.

When Germany's coalition government came to power, it set the goal of building 400,000 new homes a year, 100,000 of which were to be for welfare or social housing. "Social housing" means a landlord receives state subsidies in return for renting apartments at fixed prices well below the usual market rate to tenants with social housing eligibility certificates.

The government is miles away from meeting its targets. For Werena Rosenke, they were too modest anyway: "100,000 social housing units per year — as promised by the federal government — would not even be enough to counter the lack of affordable housing."

In addition to social housing, Rosenke said, 100,000 affordable homes are needed. "Only around 25,000 affordable new housing units have been built in recent years," complains the BAG W boss. "They can't even compensate for the reduction of social housing stock that comes with the expiration of commitments," she says.

Rosenke is calling for fixed quotas for homeless people in social housing, as they are often not even considered potential tenants because of prejudices.

Germany's government has declared its intent to end homelessness in the country by 2030 with the help of an action plan to be adopted by the Cabinet in early 2024. However, it could be years before it is implemented by the 16 German states, cities and municipalities.

Back at the Tabor parish, 10 people gathered in the vestibule. One man is curled up in front of the heater. Pastor Sabine Albrecht smiles and says: "A lot of them do that to get warm again."

Two other men read books — bread and coffee from parishioners on the table in front of them. They looked like well-kept elderly students.

"More and more," Albrecht said, "I see people showing up to our ... cafe that I would never imagine are in need or homeless."

This article was originally written in German.

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.