Refugees will soon be living in the cemetery, and asylum homes will be pushed through against the will of the German municipalities

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Germany Refugees will soon be living in the cemetery, and asylum homes will be pushed through against the will of the German municipalities Article by Fatina Keilani, Berlin • 7 hours Citizens protest against the planned refugee accommodation in Upahl. ;Municipalities all over Germany are now calling for help because they are overburdened with accommodating migrants. Bernd Wüstneck / DPA It sounds somehow morbid, but it's true: the city of Odenthal will soon be housing refugees in the mourning hall in the cemetery. This was confirmed by the city's integration officer, Claudia Kruse. Odenthal is located in North Rhine-Westphalia and has around 14,000 inhabitants. “We are currently upgrading this mourning hall because there are usually even more migration movements to Germany in the fall,” Kruse told the NZZ. “So the influx will only increase and we simply have no other accommodation options left.” All accommodations are full except for the last place. You are at the mercy of the influx. “You can’t change anything in the municipalities. That’s what federal politics has to do,” says Kruse. Another community is also feeling the effects of not being able to do anything: in Lenggries, Bavaria, the local council voted unanimously against a new asylum accommodation - it will probably be built anyway. A container building is planned in the commercial area with space for around a hundred people. Lenggries has around 10,000 inhabitants. The local council voted against it because the project was “too massive”. They also want to protect traders. Mayor Stefan Klaffenbacher (Free Voters) wants to at least set an example. “Then they’ll just have to replace us,” he says. What this means is: If the community is against the project, but the district level, as the responsible approval authority, says that it cannot be rejected under building law, then the approval authority replaces the agreement and ultimately overrides the will of the community. “We can’t do it!” the municipalities have been complaining for months This is possible because a special regulation was inserted into the building code in 2015, which allows deviations from the development plan for the creation of refugee homes. This regulation was created under pressure from the wave of refugees at the time in order to be able to build accommodation more quickly. The then Chancellor Angela Merkel said the sentence “We can do it,” which became famous. However, the sentence is increasingly proving to be untrue. “We can’t do it!” is what more and more municipalities are saying. On Thursday, an incendiary letter from the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Cities and Municipalities to the Christian Democratic Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst became known. 355 mayors describe that they can no longer withstand the stress. The overall situation is deteriorating. Other countries are also reporting a collapse in tax revenues, despite increasing social spending. The construction of apartments is also not progressing. So far, the municipalities have had little influence on federal policy. Although they are often given financial help at refugee summits, the municipalities lack living space, school places, teachers, daycare places, educators, and simply everything they need for a normal life. There is a lack of everything: housing, school places, teachers “There is no perspective at all,” says Odenthal integration officer Claudia Kruse, describing the situation. “We cannot offer the people who come to us any prospects here in Germany. In my opinion, we are making completely false promises to the outside world. This must be counteracted.” According to the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, right-wing extremist initiatives such as the Dresden association “One Percent” have begun to encourage citizens to resist. On its website, the initiative provides instructions for self-help: “This is how you prevent the asylum home!” It explains how to organize a citizens' initiative. In the end, even with such an asylum home, no asylum home can be prevented. The village of Upahl in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania fought bitterly against building containers for 400 refugees - the village has 500 inhabitants. After protests and complaints, places are now being created for 250 asylum seekers. The people are expected to move this month.