Shared accommodation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania only 58 percent occupied
Shared accommodation for asylum seekers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is now only just over half full. Municipalities across the state provide a total of 12,400 places. In May, around 7,250 of these were occupied, which corresponds to a capacity utilization of approximately 58.5 percent. These figures are contained in the state government's response to a minor interpellation by Daniel Peters, chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament.
The differences between the districts are significant. In the Ludwigslust-Parchim district, only 785 of 1,571 places were occupied in May, exactly half. In the Mecklenburg Lake District, utilization was 52.7 percent, in the Rostock district 55.5 percent, in Western Pomerania-Rügen 57.4 percent, and in Schwerin 57.7 percent. The Hanseatic city of Rostock reported 63.2 percent of its nearly 2,000 places, the Western Pomerania-Greifswald district 68.2 percent, and the Northwest Mecklenburg district 72.1 percent.
A vacant place on paper is not the same as an empty bed. According to the state government, a shared accommodation facility is considered fully occupied at 75 percent capacity: due to the familial, ethnic, cultural, and religious differences of the people living there, around a quarter of the available capacity generally cannot be used. Several districts are therefore closer to this limit with their figures than the raw percentage might suggest.
For people living in shared accommodation themselves, this is not just statistics. Experience shows that declining occupancy is the argument used to close individual locations and relocate residents to other facilities; it is also an argument for one's own application for a single room or to move out into an apartment. Anyone who is notified of a relocation or wishes to move out should contact the responsible office of the district or independent city, request every decision in writing, and observe the deadline for an appeal. Free advice is available from the migration counseling centers of the welfare associations and the Refugee Council of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.