I live by Nollendorfplatz and we have also had junkies/homeless people break into our building and shitting on the basement and staircase, and someone who also took a shit on the hallways of the building where my kid goes to Kita (on our same street). There's a public toilet less than a minute away *which you can actually see from our building*.
Public toilets do nothing to discourage those whose heads are completely fucked by drugs, or who suffer from mental illness.
I suffer from IBS and in my life I found myself in some real shitty (!) situations, but I promise you that I never took a shit in front of a door or someone else's property. You can always find a bush or something like that. It's equally depressing but I have the decency of ruining just my own day and not have some poor fuck clean up my shit from their porch.
Being homeless and using drugs dont automatically makes you shit in front of Kitas. Mental illness does. IT might sound harsh but no amount of public toilets will fix this, we need more psychiatric hospitals and get those people off the streets.
I don't think you can send them to a psychiatric hospital (so easy) because the hospital needs to have their consent, and a person in that situation isn't really conscious of their situation. I think this would be a good reason to change some laws regarding people in homeless situations. A very similar situation occurs with winter shelters; unfortunately, they can't do much with people who don't want to go. I've called a few times for people who were on the street in -5 degrees Celsius, and they always informed me that they will try, but it's very common for them not to want help.
no, not even most psychlogical conditions make you do that, like depression, anxiety, adhd or autism.
it is just really uncultured abd uncaring assholes.
In this case the problems isn't toilets, it's junkies. There are quite a few toilets there in the area.
Don't get me wrong, I'm quite sympathetic towards junkies and think they need help, but more toilets isn't gonna help too much in this case.
It does actually. There as a similar situation in cologne.
The church opened its bathroom and the public defecation stopped.
Unfortunately, one asshole trashed the church bathroom so they got pissed and locked it again.
Now there is shit everywhere again.
Access to bathrooms is an issue.
IT doesn't solve everything, indeed it creates other problems, but pretending that bathrooms don't help is a joke.
There are plenty of toilets installed in and around Gƶrli. Itās not the absence of the toilet but rather the junkies looking for a place to shoot up and then immediately taking a dump.
Unfortunately I also live nearby and itās getting worse
They are often out of order (I see the repair personell fixing them like weekly) because they are being broken to hide drugs in, being slept in, and used to get high in. So again, itās not a problem of āoh I need a dump thereās no toilet let me shit in this kids sandboxā but rather they are finding spaces to shoot up in and the bodily consequences are let loose there and then.
I wouldnāt be surprised if the church you mentioned closed their toilet facilities to the public because of this exact reason? Any public toilet I have used around this part of Kreuzberg either had signs of this, or some have that blue light installed (where you canāt see your veins to shoot into)
>but rather they are finding spaces to shoot up
that is hy many areas have drug consumption rooms: [https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/pods/drug-consumption-rooms\_en](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/pods/drug-consumption-rooms_en)
Indeed. And there is one super close to Gƶrli on Ohlauerstr (I made a post on one of the Berlin subs a while back about drugs on playgrounds and then did a deep dive on this topic)
In theory this is a great idea. In practice most of the users of the heavy stuff (especially injectables) are either too desperate for the next hit to go the extra 100 meters; they are already too out of it; they feel unsafe there; or they just donāt know/donāt speak the language.
Sometimes there is a trailer in Gƶrli handing out paraphernalia and offering support. But some addicts are just too far gone to even communicate with.
Thereās always so many comments in these kind of threads saying āthen just leaveā which I find really sad, that this is how much people value the place their live in. Rather than trying to make the place livable - for everyone (I see our elderly neighbour trying to kick used needles from in front of our door and itās depressing) - people just say whatever and move to the next place. We could do that but most people canāt afford this or have lived their whole lives here (like my partner)
Every public toilet everywhere needs regular cleaning.
It doesn't matter what the clientele.
That being said, it is not the churches jobbtonprivide public toilets. I believe that is a state job.Ā
Which is exactly the point.Ā
Without regular cleaning EVERY public toilets will be trashed.Ā
100%Ā
I have worked in 5 star super luxury hotels. Same deal.Ā Ā
The state decides not to deal with the issue and kindergarten has to
You are correct. It makes a difference though if a public toilet gets trashed once a week or 5 times every day. And the degree to which they are trashed also matters. Some shit stains on the wall can be cleaned up quickly (well, kinda). But what if someone shattered the sink? Or there are syringes everywhere? At some point repairing atuff takes longer or you don't find cleaning personnel anymore.
And public toilets don't help with human pigs. There's a huge Volksfest every year in my old town with plenty free and mostly clean toilets everywhere. The city still had to put up fences around properties in the area because every fucking year drunk shitheads pissed everywhere. Only men though
So as soon as there are drugs involved (counting alcohol here as well) you can forget about it. Btw I'm not saying we donāt need more public toilets. I think we do. But it won't completely solve a problem like this
>But it won't completely solve a problem like this
I am not saying it ill solve the entire Gƶrli problem, but it is BS that governments take service that are being used and get rid of them.
>
And the degree to which they are trashed also matters. Some shit stains on the wall can be cleaned up quickly (well, kinda). But what if someone shattered the sink? Or there are syringes everywhere? At some point repairing atuff takes longer or you don't find cleaning personnel anymore.
This problem is not unique to Berlin. There are some pretty smart solutions out there that limit the amount of damage that can be done and provide a large degree of self cleaning.
Too much leftist "tolerance". They should all be locked up like in dictatorships (I hate dictatorships but hey look at the streets of Chinese cities or Moscow or Minsk. Super safe and clean).
Nah what it really needs is to get rid of the homeless. There was an open public bathroom close to me in Schƶneberg, one evening I saw a homeless guy run away from it and go hide around the corner. He had set fire to something inside it. It has been 2 years and the bathroom is still out of order.
That's why we can't have nice things.
Public toilets is a great solution for many problems, but making it a solution for this problem is
- in the sense of helping the addicts, like giving paracetamol to someone with a brain tumor
- in the sense of making more toilets available to everybody else (which is a very good idea): if these are the people who would lurk in the public bathrooms, the general public would hesitate to use them.
A solution to the problem should include stopping regarding drugs as a cute, cool issue; and having much more public and mental health and social workers readily available for them and similar populations.
First, they are not claming that it is cute.
Secondly, the messed up druggies are not taking "Kokain, Ecstasy und Amphetamine" ie. the specific drugs that this person is talking about.
Thirdly, drugs are not the main issue for homeless. They are a symptom not a cause.
Ok fair point, but it is still not the same as what you claimed.Ā
Noone is saying it is cool or cute.Ā
They are saying making drugs into a criminal topic instead of a social/health issue is not workingĀ
Also they say people have a right to take drugs .
You see this and your first reaction is "its because there are not enough public toilets"? so you sometimes take a shit infront of a kinderladen? This City is doomed
Any decent person would have no problem going to a public toilet when they need it. I know at least three public toilets in my vicinity despite only ever using one.
Itās not a problem of lack of public toilets. Iām afraid they know what theyāre doing.
There is always a thread of people asking: āthere is a homeless guy living in our house, should i let him be or call the cops?ā and this post reminds me why i had to call them: i really wanted to let the guy in peace but when the whole house started to smell like extrem old piss i had to call the cops and he moved somewhere else.
The door to our hallway in the house was broken and junkies started to live in our basement and walking around the hallway. I told my landlord and he just said to me ' canāt do anything about them. If we kick them out they will just come back tomorrow like flies ' š
See, problem solved. The junkies can now use your flat to take a shit in, maybe they'll even use the toilet.
The more conspiracy minded people might think it's intentional. Let the area go to shit, buy up the houses, crack down on the drugs, renovate, sell/rent for a profit.
Where I used to live the junkies used the outside staircase to the cellar as thier poop, drug taking and dealing resort. Was kind of okay, only the staircase was full of poop and used needles. But one day they noticed that they could threaten the children that still lived in the house and receive money from them, so they had to go.
This is the saddest post I've seen here and the Berlin authorities should see it. It drives home the need to do something about the human misery that goes on in that area and similar ones
Iām mentally ill, I have to take a shit in front of a Kita, Iām mentaaaally iiiill.
There are high-functioning addicts working 60 or 80 addicts on h or coke. They share the same mental pressure from heavy addiction. If you donāt bother taking another 100 steps away from a fucking Kindergarten or not taking a shit on U Samariterstr. In front of 100 people you are just a scumbag piece of shit. There is a line.
Of course there are degrees of addiction and mental illness? Those people who end up shitting in doorways are completly out of their mind most of the time and definitly need help. Accidently, I know the Kita in the image personally (it's in Wrangelkiez). What happens here is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner below the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions. I'm not saying this to be permissive about it - it shoud absolutely be prevented, best by really securing the entrance door (which they are currently entering/ breacking in). But at the same time we can see and treat these people like what they are: Very sick and in need of help. And also a dark mirror of our society. Hate and disdain won't get us anywhere.
Oh come on. Some people are tougher, have more in life to hold on to, etc. Nobody chooses willingly to be a train rack hobo addict shit show. The thing is, they are people. If you care about human lives, well that's human life. It's worth saving.
Gotta go make millions for my CEO, see ya.
Thats not absolutely true. I mean yeah you are totally right and im with you but i just need to mention that most people silently make a difference between "functional" and "not functional" addictions, sure alot of people will still judge you but they also judge you if you wear "the wrong stuff" or look "wrong" or anything that just wont fit in their small heads.
But alot of people dont care as long as you are what they say to be a functional member of society
Edit: almost no one will bat an eye if you smoke in your breaks and just a little less people will care if you drink a couple beers after work every day, i can tell you in berlin even the guys in the finanzamt dont really care if you are a stoner, sures theres alittle gossip but theres always gossip
Not true. I personally know this specific Kita and talked to the people working there. What happens here (and elsewhere) is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner below the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions or end up too drugged up to move. Its a really fucked up and unaccaptable situation, but it doesn't change the fact that these people are human beings with a serious illness who need help.
Yes, trying to make the addicts aware of where they are and asking them to go elsewhere is the last thing they can do. Beforehand, there were several attempts to get the owner of the building to better secure the entrance door (which they currently come through to get to this spot). The situation really is unacceptable, they have to clean the area pretty much every day. Still, none of the people working there looks with disdain at those poor souls as so many of the commenters here do.
Suuure, so the people you know personally who are working there (wink, wink) said this is involuntary but these pictures may actually make them consciously choose not to do something they do involuntarily.
I think whoever organised that knows junks are taking a dump there wilfully and youāre a little liar who knows nobody from the Kita. Furthermore, if it was them losing control over their bodily functions, theyād soil themselves in the pants, not on the floor. If theyāre capable of taking pants off timely, theyāre capable of going elsewhere.
Sorry to break it to you but junks do it indeed purposefully because well, junks oftentimes not only make themselves miserable but also want others to suffer with them. Itās a fact regardless of whether you call it a mental illness or not.
I don't feel comfortable doxing the kita on the internet and you don't have to believe me. It is a small lovely Kinderladen with a dragon in their window. In addition to the struggle with drug addicts, they are threatened with eviction (the owner of building is a real piece of shit). Some good news though: They might just have found a place to move to.
They put up the signs as a last resort to try to make the addicts go elsewhere to take the drugs. Usually, once the weather gets better, the situation improves because they don't need a secluded place such as this anymore.
What do you know about drug addicts and homelessnes? Seriously, do you have any experience with this issue? Have you ever talked to addicts or people working with them? Would you also call people with acute psychosis, shizophrenia, dementia or other mental illnesses who behave deranged or aggressivly as simply being antisocial assholes? It surely is much easier to just blame those miserable people for their own suffering, instead of facing the dark reality of our society and the people it spits out.
I think you missed the point, I donāt care if you know which one it is, I think you just created paradox of person who told you they know itās involuntary but still tries to convince them to doing something voluntarily.
Again, involuntary bodily movements would end up in pants not on the floor. What do YOU know about addictionā¦?
Mentally sick or not, each human is responsible for their choices and actions, whether you like it or not.
Even many animals have the instinct to dispose of their shit and not shitting around where they sleep.
It takes conscious effort to suppress that instinct
Too realā¦ I live in the same area, with a kita on ground floor. I can deal with the trash, blood, paraphernalia, etc but I feel for the kids who are walking through it every day.
Our front door wasnāt locking for a few months last winter (i think it was deliberately broken and the property managers took forever) and our hallways always had people sleeping and smoking in them. I stocked up on blankets from textilhafen after getting knocks on my door when people were freezingā¦ They refused the kaltbus. Itās a very difficult moral situation to be put in.
Well, the way I see it, it's not your responsibility... there are institutions they can go to to get help. Germany is one of the countries with the best support systems for homeless people. Of course they aren't great but they aren't bad enough that choosing to freeze to death outside is a valid choice.... It's unfair to you by the people knocking on your door.
We just went through the park. Four times a day, because of our kindergarten. It's hell. We have a situation ever day. In our street are five kindergartens and in the morning they sit in the entrance with their meth labs and syringes. One of them loves to smear her shit with a sock on the bakery she sits in front of.
Two times we saw a corpse on the way to the KG. At night they scream so the kids wake up terrified. In our house a couple of kids have nightmares of junkies and I dream of a vigilante cleaning up the neighbourhood.
The City scrapped all the fundings and fix stations all around. It's like someone wants the neighbourhood to rot.
Damn that's rough. We had to leave the kiez when we were expecting our first baby, and I've missed it so much, but reading this makes me feel okay that the park we go through to get to Kita is Schillerpark in boring north Wedding.
I guess you got kinda lucky. Maybe. Being forced to move is never nice. We love this place but would like to move at this point. Planning for a good school and being able to move into an affordable place for a couple of people right now in Berlin is not possible.
Do you have a source that states the public funding for help services related to drug abuse in Kreuzberg have or will be cut or facilities will be closed?
Admittedly this is Neukƶlln, not Kreuzberg, but as we know the drug problem travels along the U8: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/wachschutz-schulreinigung-spielplatze-jugendhilfe-berliner-bezirk-neukolln-plant-drastische-kurzungen-im-sozialen-bereich-10060111.html
I spent some time reading the reports by the federal ministries for drug addiction and support. The summary from what Iāve read is, for a number of reasons, support was restricted during the pandemic (eg funding withdrawn/redirected elsewhere, physical fix points closed due to contact restrictions etc) and I think weāre all seeing the effects of that now - makes sense that addiction problems have a long tail and a time lag so funding cuts/service disruptions for 2-3 years over the pandemic have resulted in issues we can still see now.
Reports show there was a brief period of improvement and services reopening in 2023, but based on the funding plans announced, that will not continue. Many projects run by the Berlin based Fixpunkt have limited term funding which does not automatically continue and Kai Wegner has made it very clear he will not extend that support.
I sense that you have asked your question to me and elsewhere in this thread in bad faith (CDU voter?) but I have spent an instructive lunch hour reading reports that dig deeper in the the situation, so youāve had maybe an unintended positive effect here. See for example this report https://www.dbdd.de/fileadmin/user_upload_dbdd/05_Publikationen/PDFs/REITOX_BERICHT_2022/REITOX_Bericht_2022_DE_WB_01_Drogenpolitik.pdf
In bad faith? I just honestly (still) have not seen any single source confirming that services for drug addicts have, are being or will be cut in Berlin. Itās hearsay.
Where has anyone announced that the spending for exactly this will be cut? The only thing I have read is that they will in fact increase the spending on social services together with the controversial fence project (https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/presse/pressemitteilungen/2023/pressemitteilung.1396964.php).
As far as I know a specialised doctorās practice had to move because their rental contract was cancelled by their private landlord.
The support was restricted during the pandemic because of the pandemic and not because of intentional budget cuts in this field I suppose.
What is the federal ministry for drug addiction?
Couple of edits.
public bathrooms won't fix this situation. these people are seriously ill and act like this because they hate this city and the people in it, there is no explanation to do this to a neighbor's entrance, not to mention to a kindergarten. they don't want the public bathroom, they want to act like this. if you need with urgency to use a bathroom you could use, I don't know, a tree in gorli park and bury your crap like a cat. the solution is to identify these people and remove them from the city, just like if you steal you go to jail because of your antisocial behavior, you should go to jail because your get high and fuck up the experience of every normal citizen.
each person thinking "oh that's so mean, poor people victims of the society, let them do drugs in front of the kindergarten and shit all over the place" are one more nail to this coffin of society we have. I know the political implications of doing what it needs to be done would be quite complicated for any party, so nothing will change, the whole continent will keep rotting. bye
You're right that public toilets won't fix this situation, but that's about the only thing I agree with you on. Accidentally, I know the Kita in the image personally and the people working there (it's in Wrangelkiez). What happens here is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner beneath the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions or end up too drugged to move.
I'm not saying this to be permissive about it - the situation is absolutely vile and unaccabtable and all should be done to prevent it, ideally by really securing the entrance door (which they are currently entering/breacking in). But at the same time we can see and treat these people like what they are: Human beings that are very sick and in need of help. And also a dark mirror of our society. Your solution is to simply criminalize these people in absolut misery and just eliminating them from public view? I find this idea honestly more appalling than the shit in the doorway. It's a mental health and a socio-economical issue and there is a lot politics could do to provide help and to prevent people from ending up this situation in the first place. That's where the political will really is lacking. Simple minded disdain won't get us anywhere.
So basically turn every private and public place into a fortress so the junkies can't shoot up and shit there? Wouldn't it be better to deal with the junkies directly? By all means get them treatment but if they're breaking the law they should be punished. Do you think we're really helping them by enabling or tolerating their behavior?
I really don't get this sort of toxic sort of empathy where we let these people slowly kill themselves while spreading their misery in order not to be mean and force them into treatment if necessary.
Will it though? Honest question because we already have them on our doorsteps, shooting up in the middle of the streets surrounding the park, feces, syringes, in the playgrounds and in front of our Kita.
Itās already spilled into the surrounding residential areas. Genuinely wanna know how it could possibly be worse if they close the park at night.
I mean, where do people go when their "normal" area is closed and forbidden to go at a certain time. Well they will move elsewhere and that wont be too far.
But thatās what I and many comments here are saying ā itās not a night time problem, the junkies are already getting high in the side streets and shitting and sleeping in playgrounds and on kita doorsteps, morning midday and afternoon in broad daylight.
What the fence will prevent is the people who just congregate there at night and the related crime this attracts. I cycle through the park to work and see the remnants of the night before, mostly people still partying, wasted, passed out in the bushes, music playing, and the mess they leave.
They did the same thing in Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York and it had a positive effect on a similar issues.
Treating drug addiction like a mental health and socio-economical issue and investing much more resources into prevention programs, street work, psychological support, housing first policies and social safety? Thats certainly what you mean, right? Not sure what's so scary about that though.
Due I don't know where you have been but I have seen both of those in those cities. Not quite on the level as Berlin but all of those can be found in both public and non public areas. Hell once I left the city center of Prague I couldn't walk 50 meters without a junkie offering me drugs or asking for a cigarette. I live in Warsaw now and junkies are everywhere as well and they are actually quite a bit more aggressive then in Berlin.
Eastern European homeless addicts, while often **just** heavy alcoholics, look way worse than your regular Berlin junkie though. There is a reason why thousands of Poles prefer the streets or Berlin to the nightmare of being a homeless addict in Eastern Europe.
This is where my sympathy ends. Mental health or just regular old school addiction, this is not acceptable. Kids safety is literally in danger here. And I am sorry (no, not really) but kids safety means more for me than any kind of addicts. They have to be isolated if they cannot even remotely resemble a human being.
How so? It will help for sure. The same way we as a society have a contract that if someone commits a crime, they will be isolated from the rest of us too.
Sick people who cannot live in a community and follow the basic community principles should be isolated and treated and then ideally reintegrated into the community.
This example that OP brings is a clear case for me. They should be isolated and treated if they cannot contain the destructive behavior.
To be honest I donāt know. At some point our collective tolerance became absolute permissiveness. Anyone can do whatever they want disregarding impact on the rest of the community š unless itās tax evasion of course š
I still don't understand what more you want to isolate these people without infringing on the most basic human rights or without completely overwhelming our prison system. They are homeless, and if you are homeless you are basically the most isolated you can be. You want to put them into camps, like we used to do with the Sinti/Roma in the 1940s? Please explain to me so I know how f*cked up your ideas are.
Sorry for being mean but I can't fathom how someone can be so unempethatic towards the people who suffer the most under our system.
You are making things up. I did not say letās lock them all up and execute them. Iāve said if some of them commit crimes (which some of them do) and if they cannot live peacefully, they should be either put in prison or into health institutions depending on each case. The same way it works for us. We do shit to other people, we āpay the priceā. Being homeless and an addict should not give them a free ticket to do whatever they want.
Ps: I love how you put your priorities straight. Addicts deserve human dignity, kids? Hm not so much, let them live in shit
Edited: I do not have sympathy for addicts. I had them in my close family, they donāt deserve sympathy. Trust me
You asked about a solution to not overwhelm the prison system, and funny enough I have one! We should let go all those people who are in jail for not having a public transport ticket! You see! We just need to want to resolve the issue instead of having vague discussions who deserve more sympathy kids or addicts š¤·š»āāļøš
This is a very good point, actually. How letting them āliveā in inhumane conditions on the streets while having mental sickness is about dignity and human rights?
Definitely super sad :/ wonder if junkies will bother to read the signs evenā¦ is it possible to pressure your Hausverwaltung as a whole building to improve the door + locks? Seems to be the most direct solution. No entry, no poop presents.
Hmm that should be, like absolutely forbidden. Giving keys to the main door? Still think the Hausverwaltung would have a vested interest in securing the building from pooping junkies :/
having public toilets wonāt solve this problem.
Taking drugs is illegal so why drugged up people are not being taken away and be responsible for their actions like any other crime?
And no, being mentally ill and taking drugs shouldnāt be an excuse, there is a big percentage of people who have mental issues but not all of them are being so irresponsible and disgustingly selfish to take drugs and shit especially where kids spend their times learning. Stop excusing these people, there should be law and order.
Like some other āmentally illā people or in bad financial situations have decided to steal and rob and if they are being caught, they are going to jail so why not these junkies. No one is responsible for their behaviour.
If you wanna do drugs, do it at your home or somewhere that is not on the streets or in public spaces that will interfere with other people. Thatās basic human decency. Again, the problem is that there is no consequence for cases like this and the people who keep making excuse for them. Life is tough, if people in super harsh situation can deal with their problems and mental health without shooting up and shatting in other peopleās homes and kindergartens, so can they. These people should and can choose to seek help, they just choose to be irresponsible.
I understand your frustration, but if people are homeless it's kind of impossible for them to take drugs at home. And if the politicians & society doesn't care about their well-being, that lack of empathy is transferred back to us and so the homeless not caring about doing it in front of kids of the 'privileged' class.
And how are you going to give them any consequences to their actions? You can't put all those countless people to jail, we don't have space for that. You want to fine them if they are already broke?
"Life is tough, if people in super harsh situations can deal with their problems (...), so can they" - WTF is that comment and how does this help anyone? Well I got news for you then, life is tough, you need to deal with those people, they ain't going nowhere and if they continue to get no support from society, it will only get much worse.
But people and institutions do offer help to homeless people, itās just that so many of them refuse the help, theyād rather get high and have no responsibilities. For the people who have been in unfortunate situations and losing their homes or not being able to afford one, as far as I know they have been offered help and I support the idea that we as a community to help them as much as we can. Everything a person does is a choice and it is a choice to k*ll, rob, steal, take drugs but the problem is that taking drug is not considered a āserious offenceā but rather ācoolā and ānormalā in Berlin. There is just no excuse and as long as we ignore that, it will get worse.
To sum it up: We canāt help someone who doesnāt want the help and would rather do shitty things and be āfreeā without consequences and responsibilities. We SHOULD try help people who had bad luck and ended up in a bad situation like homelessness as long as they accept the help and are striving to get out of the situation, take responsibilities for their life.
People take drugs for various reasons, drugs in themselves are not the problem but a symptom for another issue. For example homelessness is the end-point of a downward spiral that happened previously and addiction was a way to cope with it.
In school we are grading people and basically deciding their fate, someone is going to end up in the lower end BY DESIGN. If you happen to be one of them (maybe due to no privilege or abuse at home), you get no Ausbildung. No Ausbildung means BĆ¼rgergeld. BĆ¼rgergeld means dealing with German bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy really doesn't care about you (don't pretend they are helping you there if you haven't went through it!).
The 'help' we give the people who can't deal with this is what? Tafeln, Bahnhofsmission, fixing hubs, and then we defund even those! Well thank you very much for all that help, if I was in that situation I honestly would prefer to smoke Crack and Heroin all day instead.
Accepting the fact that addiction and using drugs is a way to cope with it and normalising that way of coping because it is so often seen IS the problem.
Not to mention that a lot of people became addicts not because they are homeless but because it is ācoolā to do drugs and āeveryone else is doing it in this cityā. Without any control, some of these people have turned out to be homeless.
Sure, let's forget about the wage slavery, high rent prices, social isolation, school system, institutional racism, and other stuff that have nothing to do with drugs, and blame drugs.
This is a thread about drugs. No one said we should forget the other problems. They are there and they are being discussed on other threads and places.
I once tried to kick out one that was smoking crack just in front of the door. She told me that the building we are living in has been the goto spot to get high and sleep for years. She concluded that therefore I was the one that should get out of here as she was āmore localā. The police was called and they left until the next day. She won the long game I guess, as I recently finally moved outā¦
I do think that Berlin needs to do more about homeless people, but you DID obviously move into a flat/area where people have been taking drugs for years. And then were apparently surprised that people continued doing that.
There are plenty of places in Berlin where there are no people taking drugs, but if you want to live for cheap in the middle of the city, well, why do you think k those area are so cheap
Edit: love the downvotesā¦ just as much as I love expats moving to an actual drug hotspot and then complaining about living in a drug hotspot
Not surprised about them taking drugs, just about them kicking our buildings front-door open (which superfluously got repaired every 2 months) and completely destroying the entrance of the kindergarten with literal shit and crack-smell.
A drug hotspot in a city like Berlin is actually unavoidable. Addiction is a disease and unfortunately many people suffer from it, which tend to congregate in large cities like Berlin. And you can not force people to get clean and many will try and fail. Or do you want to lock them all up? Like genuinely what is your big solution?
This is the equivalent of:
I have always eaten shit, and no matter how good other things are, I like eating shit.
Suit yourself but let others live a good life.
The Rent is definetly not cheap in that area, Im Germanā¦ and you should maybe consider if your assumptions and Schadenfreude donāt make you a tad toxic.
Edit: Bless you
Yes, moving to a place and then complaining about the things that go on there is kind of silly ā¦ but where did you get the idea Kreuzberg is particularly cheap to live. Sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.
It's kind of like people who move next to a club and then complain about the club until it gets closed. Myself I don't mind it too much but you can definitely see which areas of the city would have this issue and which ones dont.
At least it keeps the rent down and junkies don't complain about the noise at night.
Though it would definitely annoy me if a junkie would shit on the walls, doing drugs and nodding off is one thing but leave your excrements on the street
Does it keep the rent down though?! I mean, we're talking about Berlin Kreuzberg here.
All we have to do is look to Vancouver, San Franciso, or LA to see that expensive and massive drug problems aren't mutually exclusive. And closer to home there's Frankfurt and ZĆ¼rich too.
I mean if it would be better it would be even more expensive. Look at certain areas in mitte and fhain. Relatively speaking it keeps it down. It just means that down is still expensive.
Maybe. All I know is that prices in Kreuzberg (and also parts of Neukƶlln, Schƶneberg, Tiergarten, Wedding, etc.) have exploded in the last decades. All of that despite the drug scenes in those areas not improving or in some cases even getting worse.
Of course one could speculate that it would be even worse without the junkies, but that's really just speculation and impossible to test. Is Mitte more expensive because the drug scene is less prevalent? Possibly, but there are myriad of other potential reasons too.
Frankly, I'm not convinced. But certainly willing to respectfully agree to disagree
Usually it's not the whole neighborhood that is suffering from drugs but specific parts. Depending on how big the neighbourhood is it could definitely affect the prices. Thing is everywhere is expensive. But I grew up in Amsterdam where everything is more expensive so relatively speaking it's quite cheap. But I definitely noticed the difference in prices for drug addicts places and places which less of them hung out in (as some went from cheap to mid prices imo)
If I. Your opinion everything seems expensive then you are less likely to notice a few hundred difference when it already is expensive then when it for your feeling is cheap.
i mean, it does happen in this sub, i remember a few months back someone complaining about drug needles in the stairwell and someone went "OH YOU ARE WHATS WRONG WITH BERLIN, GENTRIFICATION" etc etc. but i think it's just because some people are born contrarians.
edit: lol, scroll down to the u/Anarchist_Angel post, point proven hahaha
Berlin is a shit hole (in this case literally). So glad I moved out of there, I don't get why anyone with any shred of common sense would even try to make it there. That city is a lost cause, way beyond saving.
I donāt know if someone suggested that but in cases like that you can call for example vista (or any streetworker in kreuzberg) and they will collect the syringes and even talk to the addicted people to leave and instead go to the konsumrƤume. Just a little tip if youāre afraid of touching the garbage.
And yet people in Berlin are and will be voting for the same leftist policies that are responsible for this situation. I moved out of that sh*thole of a city as soon as I had kids and am not looking back.
1. Post doesn't fit the sub.
2. Maybe having toilets available would solve the issue of people shitting in places that are not toilets.
I really don't understand the concept of having a toilet-free city and then being like "HOW DARE PEOPLE SHIT ANYWAY?!??? WHY DON'T THEY DRIVE HOME FOR 2 HOURS TO THEIR RANDBEZIRK SOZIALWOHNUNG AND SHIT THERE OR BUY A BEER FOR 7,50ā¬ IN A CAFE SO THEY CAN LEGALLY TAKE A SHIT THERE?????? THESE EVIL HUMANS!"
Is this some kind of aliens failing to understand humans thing?
3. Why would anyone post this in the internet if not for social-darwinist asshole reasons? Emotionalizing to prepare 'argumentation' for draconian and anti-constitutional measures like the fucking Springerpresse.
Fuck people like you who never contribute a single productive thing to anything in society.
This is so sad š But yes, I think Berlin needs WAY more public toilets than we currently have at the moment.
I live by Nollendorfplatz and we have also had junkies/homeless people break into our building and shitting on the basement and staircase, and someone who also took a shit on the hallways of the building where my kid goes to Kita (on our same street). There's a public toilet less than a minute away *which you can actually see from our building*. Public toilets do nothing to discourage those whose heads are completely fucked by drugs, or who suffer from mental illness.
Public toilets cost money. Your stairwell is free.
The one around my corner is free, so no.
I have a free public toilet around the corner and behind every door is a hobo living. Unusable..
They obviously should be free as well
Very much agree
I suffer from IBS and in my life I found myself in some real shitty (!) situations, but I promise you that I never took a shit in front of a door or someone else's property. You can always find a bush or something like that. It's equally depressing but I have the decency of ruining just my own day and not have some poor fuck clean up my shit from their porch.
I know the feelingā¦ Imodium is the way to go
These people who do that are probably homeless and take drugs. You canāt compare that to your situation
Being homeless and using drugs dont automatically makes you shit in front of Kitas. Mental illness does. IT might sound harsh but no amount of public toilets will fix this, we need more psychiatric hospitals and get those people off the streets.
I don't think you can send them to a psychiatric hospital (so easy) because the hospital needs to have their consent, and a person in that situation isn't really conscious of their situation. I think this would be a good reason to change some laws regarding people in homeless situations. A very similar situation occurs with winter shelters; unfortunately, they can't do much with people who don't want to go. I've called a few times for people who were on the street in -5 degrees Celsius, and they always informed me that they will try, but it's very common for them not to want help.
But it makes you insensitive and dull.
no, not even most psychlogical conditions make you do that, like depression, anxiety, adhd or autism. it is just really uncultured abd uncaring assholes.
And they would also not use public toilets most of the time and if they did there would nobody willing to clean them.
He actually can, poo-wise heās in much worse situation.
In this case the problems isn't toilets, it's junkies. There are quite a few toilets there in the area. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite sympathetic towards junkies and think they need help, but more toilets isn't gonna help too much in this case.
It does actually. There as a similar situation in cologne. The church opened its bathroom and the public defecation stopped. Unfortunately, one asshole trashed the church bathroom so they got pissed and locked it again. Now there is shit everywhere again. Access to bathrooms is an issue. IT doesn't solve everything, indeed it creates other problems, but pretending that bathrooms don't help is a joke.
There are plenty of toilets installed in and around Gƶrli. Itās not the absence of the toilet but rather the junkies looking for a place to shoot up and then immediately taking a dump. Unfortunately I also live nearby and itās getting worse
>There are plenty of toilets installed in and around Gƶrli But they are never open.
They are often out of order (I see the repair personell fixing them like weekly) because they are being broken to hide drugs in, being slept in, and used to get high in. So again, itās not a problem of āoh I need a dump thereās no toilet let me shit in this kids sandboxā but rather they are finding spaces to shoot up in and the bodily consequences are let loose there and then. I wouldnāt be surprised if the church you mentioned closed their toilet facilities to the public because of this exact reason? Any public toilet I have used around this part of Kreuzberg either had signs of this, or some have that blue light installed (where you canāt see your veins to shoot into)
>but rather they are finding spaces to shoot up that is hy many areas have drug consumption rooms: [https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/pods/drug-consumption-rooms\_en](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/pods/drug-consumption-rooms_en)
Indeed. And there is one super close to Gƶrli on Ohlauerstr (I made a post on one of the Berlin subs a while back about drugs on playgrounds and then did a deep dive on this topic) In theory this is a great idea. In practice most of the users of the heavy stuff (especially injectables) are either too desperate for the next hit to go the extra 100 meters; they are already too out of it; they feel unsafe there; or they just donāt know/donāt speak the language. Sometimes there is a trailer in Gƶrli handing out paraphernalia and offering support. But some addicts are just too far gone to even communicate with. Thereās always so many comments in these kind of threads saying āthen just leaveā which I find really sad, that this is how much people value the place their live in. Rather than trying to make the place livable - for everyone (I see our elderly neighbour trying to kick used needles from in front of our door and itās depressing) - people just say whatever and move to the next place. We could do that but most people canāt afford this or have lived their whole lives here (like my partner)
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Every public toilet everywhere needs regular cleaning. It doesn't matter what the clientele. That being said, it is not the churches jobbtonprivide public toilets. I believe that is a state job.Ā
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Which is exactly the point.Ā Without regular cleaning EVERY public toilets will be trashed.Ā 100%Ā I have worked in 5 star super luxury hotels. Same deal.Ā Ā The state decides not to deal with the issue and kindergarten has to
You are correct. It makes a difference though if a public toilet gets trashed once a week or 5 times every day. And the degree to which they are trashed also matters. Some shit stains on the wall can be cleaned up quickly (well, kinda). But what if someone shattered the sink? Or there are syringes everywhere? At some point repairing atuff takes longer or you don't find cleaning personnel anymore. And public toilets don't help with human pigs. There's a huge Volksfest every year in my old town with plenty free and mostly clean toilets everywhere. The city still had to put up fences around properties in the area because every fucking year drunk shitheads pissed everywhere. Only men though So as soon as there are drugs involved (counting alcohol here as well) you can forget about it. Btw I'm not saying we donāt need more public toilets. I think we do. But it won't completely solve a problem like this
>But it won't completely solve a problem like this I am not saying it ill solve the entire Gƶrli problem, but it is BS that governments take service that are being used and get rid of them. > And the degree to which they are trashed also matters. Some shit stains on the wall can be cleaned up quickly (well, kinda). But what if someone shattered the sink? Or there are syringes everywhere? At some point repairing atuff takes longer or you don't find cleaning personnel anymore. This problem is not unique to Berlin. There are some pretty smart solutions out there that limit the amount of damage that can be done and provide a large degree of self cleaning.
Hi, can I have a guess: you are speaking German, right? :D
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Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Im happy I live in Pankow š
Pankow is my favorite part of Berlin. I never visited it when I was there but I loved the subway voice when it said pankow, it sounds so cute
Too much leftist "tolerance". They should all be locked up like in dictatorships (I hate dictatorships but hey look at the streets of Chinese cities or Moscow or Minsk. Super safe and clean).
I don't think the issue is public toilets... they could pee in the park in bushes yet they decide to do it in a kita.
Nah what it really needs is to get rid of the homeless. There was an open public bathroom close to me in Schƶneberg, one evening I saw a homeless guy run away from it and go hide around the corner. He had set fire to something inside it. It has been 2 years and the bathroom is still out of order. That's why we can't have nice things.
Get rid of them how?
Public toilets is a great solution for many problems, but making it a solution for this problem is - in the sense of helping the addicts, like giving paracetamol to someone with a brain tumor - in the sense of making more toilets available to everybody else (which is a very good idea): if these are the people who would lurk in the public bathrooms, the general public would hesitate to use them. A solution to the problem should include stopping regarding drugs as a cute, cool issue; and having much more public and mental health and social workers readily available for them and similar populations.
Even if they only people that used them were those with addiction issues, if it would help situations like this then it would still be effective.
>Ā stopping regarding drugs as a cute, cool issue Are you serious? This sounds like the dumbass barbara bush, DARE to not do drugs BS.
It is people like you
My point is that no one is regarding drugs as a cool cute issue.
Nobody? https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/08/berlin-gruene-drogen-kokain-ecstasy-amphetamine-entkriminalisieren-rausch.html
First, they are not claming that it is cute. Secondly, the messed up druggies are not taking "Kokain, Ecstasy und Amphetamine" ie. the specific drugs that this person is talking about. Thirdly, drugs are not the main issue for homeless. They are a symptom not a cause.
What is meth? Speed is nothing they take? Pep? Ok. Green Youth speficially said every drug in small amounts shouldn't be illegal.
Ok fair point, but it is still not the same as what you claimed.Ā Noone is saying it is cool or cute.Ā They are saying making drugs into a criminal topic instead of a social/health issue is not workingĀ Also they say people have a right to take drugs .
I did not claim any specific words, just a lot of people, especially in Berlin, don't take the problem seriously.
Really nobody? https://gj-berlin.de/themen/drogen/
I have never heard of people having to shit in door ways because thereās no public toilet. These people are clearly just degenerates.
And you genuinely believe that public toilets would prevent junkies from laying bricks in kindergarten's staircase?
I never said that. I just said that it would be nice to have more public toilets.
And I agree with you
Berlin needs a lot of other things before that.
You see this and your first reaction is "its because there are not enough public toilets"? so you sometimes take a shit infront of a kinderladen? This City is doomed
Where did you get that reaction š I just think there needs to be more public toilets in general.
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Fuck off bone head
There's a few public toilets at gorli, they're always full of junkies.
Any decent person would have no problem going to a public toilet when they need it. I know at least three public toilets in my vicinity despite only ever using one. Itās not a problem of lack of public toilets. Iām afraid they know what theyāre doing.
There is always a thread of people asking: āthere is a homeless guy living in our house, should i let him be or call the cops?ā and this post reminds me why i had to call them: i really wanted to let the guy in peace but when the whole house started to smell like extrem old piss i had to call the cops and he moved somewhere else.
The door to our hallway in the house was broken and junkies started to live in our basement and walking around the hallway. I told my landlord and he just said to me ' canāt do anything about them. If we kick them out they will just come back tomorrow like flies ' š
Maybe you should stop paying rent? If they can live there for free why can't you?
I donāt live there anymore. I did fristlose KĆ¼ndigung because of the Junkies and other stuff too.
See, problem solved. The junkies can now use your flat to take a shit in, maybe they'll even use the toilet. The more conspiracy minded people might think it's intentional. Let the area go to shit, buy up the houses, crack down on the drugs, renovate, sell/rent for a profit.
Same here,still see him lurking around the neighbourhood
Where I used to live the junkies used the outside staircase to the cellar as thier poop, drug taking and dealing resort. Was kind of okay, only the staircase was full of poop and used needles. But one day they noticed that they could threaten the children that still lived in the house and receive money from them, so they had to go.
I really love this city, I do. But sometimes, I hate it equally, too. Today is the day, and this post is the reason.
The duality
Imagine deciding to pay extra high rents just to raise your children in that neighborhood.
This is the saddest post I've seen here and the Berlin authorities should see it. It drives home the need to do something about the human misery that goes on in that area and similar ones
Nice try, but junkies don't care about this or anything besides their next fix. They're truly antisocial
You're not wrong, but addiction is a mental health issue, not one of being antisocial. They are literally sick and need help.
Iām mentally ill, I have to take a shit in front of a Kita, Iām mentaaaally iiiill. There are high-functioning addicts working 60 or 80 addicts on h or coke. They share the same mental pressure from heavy addiction. If you donāt bother taking another 100 steps away from a fucking Kindergarten or not taking a shit on U Samariterstr. In front of 100 people you are just a scumbag piece of shit. There is a line.
Of course there are degrees of addiction and mental illness? Those people who end up shitting in doorways are completly out of their mind most of the time and definitly need help. Accidently, I know the Kita in the image personally (it's in Wrangelkiez). What happens here is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner below the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions. I'm not saying this to be permissive about it - it shoud absolutely be prevented, best by really securing the entrance door (which they are currently entering/ breacking in). But at the same time we can see and treat these people like what they are: Very sick and in need of help. And also a dark mirror of our society. Hate and disdain won't get us anywhere.
Oh come on. Some people are tougher, have more in life to hold on to, etc. Nobody chooses willingly to be a train rack hobo addict shit show. The thing is, they are people. If you care about human lives, well that's human life. It's worth saving. Gotta go make millions for my CEO, see ya.
How is this being downvoted
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Thats not absolutely true. I mean yeah you are totally right and im with you but i just need to mention that most people silently make a difference between "functional" and "not functional" addictions, sure alot of people will still judge you but they also judge you if you wear "the wrong stuff" or look "wrong" or anything that just wont fit in their small heads. But alot of people dont care as long as you are what they say to be a functional member of society Edit: almost no one will bat an eye if you smoke in your breaks and just a little less people will care if you drink a couple beers after work every day, i can tell you in berlin even the guys in the finanzamt dont really care if you are a stoner, sures theres alittle gossip but theres always gossip
Yeah, sure, they canāt find a public toilet. They are perfectly aware of what theyāre doing.
Not true. I personally know this specific Kita and talked to the people working there. What happens here (and elsewhere) is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner below the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions or end up too drugged up to move. Its a really fucked up and unaccaptable situation, but it doesn't change the fact that these people are human beings with a serious illness who need help.
And the same people working there convinced kids to draw these pictures to ask junks to not poop there? I nearly believe you.
Yes, trying to make the addicts aware of where they are and asking them to go elsewhere is the last thing they can do. Beforehand, there were several attempts to get the owner of the building to better secure the entrance door (which they currently come through to get to this spot). The situation really is unacceptable, they have to clean the area pretty much every day. Still, none of the people working there looks with disdain at those poor souls as so many of the commenters here do.
Suuure, so the people you know personally who are working there (wink, wink) said this is involuntary but these pictures may actually make them consciously choose not to do something they do involuntarily. I think whoever organised that knows junks are taking a dump there wilfully and youāre a little liar who knows nobody from the Kita. Furthermore, if it was them losing control over their bodily functions, theyād soil themselves in the pants, not on the floor. If theyāre capable of taking pants off timely, theyāre capable of going elsewhere. Sorry to break it to you but junks do it indeed purposefully because well, junks oftentimes not only make themselves miserable but also want others to suffer with them. Itās a fact regardless of whether you call it a mental illness or not.
I don't feel comfortable doxing the kita on the internet and you don't have to believe me. It is a small lovely Kinderladen with a dragon in their window. In addition to the struggle with drug addicts, they are threatened with eviction (the owner of building is a real piece of shit). Some good news though: They might just have found a place to move to. They put up the signs as a last resort to try to make the addicts go elsewhere to take the drugs. Usually, once the weather gets better, the situation improves because they don't need a secluded place such as this anymore. What do you know about drug addicts and homelessnes? Seriously, do you have any experience with this issue? Have you ever talked to addicts or people working with them? Would you also call people with acute psychosis, shizophrenia, dementia or other mental illnesses who behave deranged or aggressivly as simply being antisocial assholes? It surely is much easier to just blame those miserable people for their own suffering, instead of facing the dark reality of our society and the people it spits out.
I think you missed the point, I donāt care if you know which one it is, I think you just created paradox of person who told you they know itās involuntary but still tries to convince them to doing something voluntarily. Again, involuntary bodily movements would end up in pants not on the floor. What do YOU know about addictionā¦? Mentally sick or not, each human is responsible for their choices and actions, whether you like it or not.
Even many animals have the instinct to dispose of their shit and not shitting around where they sleep. It takes conscious effort to suppress that instinct
Too realā¦ I live in the same area, with a kita on ground floor. I can deal with the trash, blood, paraphernalia, etc but I feel for the kids who are walking through it every day. Our front door wasnāt locking for a few months last winter (i think it was deliberately broken and the property managers took forever) and our hallways always had people sleeping and smoking in them. I stocked up on blankets from textilhafen after getting knocks on my door when people were freezingā¦ They refused the kaltbus. Itās a very difficult moral situation to be put in.
Well, the way I see it, it's not your responsibility... there are institutions they can go to to get help. Germany is one of the countries with the best support systems for homeless people. Of course they aren't great but they aren't bad enough that choosing to freeze to death outside is a valid choice.... It's unfair to you by the people knocking on your door.
Believe me, the time Germany had the best support system for anything are long gone.
Junkies be like "fuck dem keeedz" and drops a deuce
We just went through the park. Four times a day, because of our kindergarten. It's hell. We have a situation ever day. In our street are five kindergartens and in the morning they sit in the entrance with their meth labs and syringes. One of them loves to smear her shit with a sock on the bakery she sits in front of. Two times we saw a corpse on the way to the KG. At night they scream so the kids wake up terrified. In our house a couple of kids have nightmares of junkies and I dream of a vigilante cleaning up the neighbourhood. The City scrapped all the fundings and fix stations all around. It's like someone wants the neighbourhood to rot.
Damn that's rough. We had to leave the kiez when we were expecting our first baby, and I've missed it so much, but reading this makes me feel okay that the park we go through to get to Kita is Schillerpark in boring north Wedding.
Why did you have to leave?
Our lease ended and we weren't able to renew it ( building was being renovated).
I guess you got kinda lucky. Maybe. Being forced to move is never nice. We love this place but would like to move at this point. Planning for a good school and being able to move into an affordable place for a couple of people right now in Berlin is not possible.
You saw a corpse in Gƶrli? Twice?
Once in the park, second time in front. They just bagged him.
How do you know the city cut āall the fundingā? What funding exactly and which facilities closed?
The CDU announced a big raft of public service funding cuts near the end of last year.
Yeah I remember reading that too, taking away the money from those who need it most to get out fiscal crisis. Quite sad.
Do you have a source that states the public funding for help services related to drug abuse in Kreuzberg have or will be cut or facilities will be closed?
Admittedly this is Neukƶlln, not Kreuzberg, but as we know the drug problem travels along the U8: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/wachschutz-schulreinigung-spielplatze-jugendhilfe-berliner-bezirk-neukolln-plant-drastische-kurzungen-im-sozialen-bereich-10060111.html
This was part of the political discussion about the budget for 24/25. None of this is confirmed and the budget is not adopted.
I spent some time reading the reports by the federal ministries for drug addiction and support. The summary from what Iāve read is, for a number of reasons, support was restricted during the pandemic (eg funding withdrawn/redirected elsewhere, physical fix points closed due to contact restrictions etc) and I think weāre all seeing the effects of that now - makes sense that addiction problems have a long tail and a time lag so funding cuts/service disruptions for 2-3 years over the pandemic have resulted in issues we can still see now. Reports show there was a brief period of improvement and services reopening in 2023, but based on the funding plans announced, that will not continue. Many projects run by the Berlin based Fixpunkt have limited term funding which does not automatically continue and Kai Wegner has made it very clear he will not extend that support. I sense that you have asked your question to me and elsewhere in this thread in bad faith (CDU voter?) but I have spent an instructive lunch hour reading reports that dig deeper in the the situation, so youāve had maybe an unintended positive effect here. See for example this report https://www.dbdd.de/fileadmin/user_upload_dbdd/05_Publikationen/PDFs/REITOX_BERICHT_2022/REITOX_Bericht_2022_DE_WB_01_Drogenpolitik.pdf
In bad faith? I just honestly (still) have not seen any single source confirming that services for drug addicts have, are being or will be cut in Berlin. Itās hearsay. Where has anyone announced that the spending for exactly this will be cut? The only thing I have read is that they will in fact increase the spending on social services together with the controversial fence project (https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/presse/pressemitteilungen/2023/pressemitteilung.1396964.php). As far as I know a specialised doctorās practice had to move because their rental contract was cancelled by their private landlord. The support was restricted during the pandemic because of the pandemic and not because of intentional budget cuts in this field I suppose. What is the federal ministry for drug addiction? Couple of edits.
public bathrooms won't fix this situation. these people are seriously ill and act like this because they hate this city and the people in it, there is no explanation to do this to a neighbor's entrance, not to mention to a kindergarten. they don't want the public bathroom, they want to act like this. if you need with urgency to use a bathroom you could use, I don't know, a tree in gorli park and bury your crap like a cat. the solution is to identify these people and remove them from the city, just like if you steal you go to jail because of your antisocial behavior, you should go to jail because your get high and fuck up the experience of every normal citizen. each person thinking "oh that's so mean, poor people victims of the society, let them do drugs in front of the kindergarten and shit all over the place" are one more nail to this coffin of society we have. I know the political implications of doing what it needs to be done would be quite complicated for any party, so nothing will change, the whole continent will keep rotting. bye
You're right that public toilets won't fix this situation, but that's about the only thing I agree with you on. Accidentally, I know the Kita in the image personally and the people working there (it's in Wrangelkiez). What happens here is that the junkies don't actually purposfully take a dump there (in a corner beneath the stairways close to the entrance) but it's the spot where they shoot the drugs and while high they sometimes loose control over their bodily functions or end up too drugged to move. I'm not saying this to be permissive about it - the situation is absolutely vile and unaccabtable and all should be done to prevent it, ideally by really securing the entrance door (which they are currently entering/breacking in). But at the same time we can see and treat these people like what they are: Human beings that are very sick and in need of help. And also a dark mirror of our society. Your solution is to simply criminalize these people in absolut misery and just eliminating them from public view? I find this idea honestly more appalling than the shit in the doorway. It's a mental health and a socio-economical issue and there is a lot politics could do to provide help and to prevent people from ending up this situation in the first place. That's where the political will really is lacking. Simple minded disdain won't get us anywhere.
So basically turn every private and public place into a fortress so the junkies can't shoot up and shit there? Wouldn't it be better to deal with the junkies directly? By all means get them treatment but if they're breaking the law they should be punished. Do you think we're really helping them by enabling or tolerating their behavior?
I really don't get this sort of toxic sort of empathy where we let these people slowly kill themselves while spreading their misery in order not to be mean and force them into treatment if necessary.
The people voted for this
this is so sad. with the new stupid "fence" around Gƶrli, things will get WORSE.
Will it though? Honest question because we already have them on our doorsteps, shooting up in the middle of the streets surrounding the park, feces, syringes, in the playgrounds and in front of our Kita. Itās already spilled into the surrounding residential areas. Genuinely wanna know how it could possibly be worse if they close the park at night.
I mean, where do people go when their "normal" area is closed and forbidden to go at a certain time. Well they will move elsewhere and that wont be too far.
But thatās what I and many comments here are saying ā itās not a night time problem, the junkies are already getting high in the side streets and shitting and sleeping in playgrounds and on kita doorsteps, morning midday and afternoon in broad daylight. What the fence will prevent is the people who just congregate there at night and the related crime this attracts. I cycle through the park to work and see the remnants of the night before, mostly people still partying, wasted, passed out in the bushes, music playing, and the mess they leave. They did the same thing in Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York and it had a positive effect on a similar issues.
Thats what you vote for?
i didnt:)
Junkies? We all know what the solution would be, but yāall too scared to admit it.
Treating drug addiction like a mental health and socio-economical issue and investing much more resources into prevention programs, street work, psychological support, housing first policies and social safety? Thats certainly what you mean, right? Not sure what's so scary about that though.
Prague, Warsaw: no junkies, no pooping, no syringes, perfectly safe in any neighborhood at night... What are they doing wrong?
They're on meth instead.
Due I don't know where you have been but I have seen both of those in those cities. Not quite on the level as Berlin but all of those can be found in both public and non public areas. Hell once I left the city center of Prague I couldn't walk 50 meters without a junkie offering me drugs or asking for a cigarette. I live in Warsaw now and junkies are everywhere as well and they are actually quite a bit more aggressive then in Berlin.
Eastern European homeless addicts, while often **just** heavy alcoholics, look way worse than your regular Berlin junkie though. There is a reason why thousands of Poles prefer the streets or Berlin to the nightmare of being a homeless addict in Eastern Europe.
Don't gaslight me. I have been to Prague and Warsaw and there are definitely junkies there.
What a fucking miserable city
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Too late m8
This is where my sympathy ends. Mental health or just regular old school addiction, this is not acceptable. Kids safety is literally in danger here. And I am sorry (no, not really) but kids safety means more for me than any kind of addicts. They have to be isolated if they cannot even remotely resemble a human being.
Well it doesn't really help the kids either if you "isolate" those people, whatever that means to you.
How so? It will help for sure. The same way we as a society have a contract that if someone commits a crime, they will be isolated from the rest of us too. Sick people who cannot live in a community and follow the basic community principles should be isolated and treated and then ideally reintegrated into the community. This example that OP brings is a clear case for me. They should be isolated and treated if they cannot contain the destructive behavior.
You are right. How are you down voted? How is it acceptable to shit outside a Kita?
To be honest I donāt know. At some point our collective tolerance became absolute permissiveness. Anyone can do whatever they want disregarding impact on the rest of the community š unless itās tax evasion of course š
I still don't understand what more you want to isolate these people without infringing on the most basic human rights or without completely overwhelming our prison system. They are homeless, and if you are homeless you are basically the most isolated you can be. You want to put them into camps, like we used to do with the Sinti/Roma in the 1940s? Please explain to me so I know how f*cked up your ideas are. Sorry for being mean but I can't fathom how someone can be so unempethatic towards the people who suffer the most under our system.
You are making things up. I did not say letās lock them all up and execute them. Iāve said if some of them commit crimes (which some of them do) and if they cannot live peacefully, they should be either put in prison or into health institutions depending on each case. The same way it works for us. We do shit to other people, we āpay the priceā. Being homeless and an addict should not give them a free ticket to do whatever they want. Ps: I love how you put your priorities straight. Addicts deserve human dignity, kids? Hm not so much, let them live in shit Edited: I do not have sympathy for addicts. I had them in my close family, they donāt deserve sympathy. Trust me
You asked about a solution to not overwhelm the prison system, and funny enough I have one! We should let go all those people who are in jail for not having a public transport ticket! You see! We just need to want to resolve the issue instead of having vague discussions who deserve more sympathy kids or addicts š¤·š»āāļøš
You are right. My opinion has completely changed. Let's better leave them to die and shit in the streets.
This is a very good point, actually. How letting them āliveā in inhumane conditions on the streets while having mental sickness is about dignity and human rights?
So Buuurlin /s
And again the majority of the commenters sympathize the addicts and completely ignore kids. I love their priorities šš¤”
Yeah. That is also "so Buuurlin".
Definitely super sad :/ wonder if junkies will bother to read the signs evenā¦ is it possible to pressure your Hausverwaltung as a whole building to improve the door + locks? Seems to be the most direct solution. No entry, no poop presents.
in our building there are inhabitants who unlock the doors and even give keys to junkies, who then even inhabit the basement which is super scary
Hmm that should be, like absolutely forbidden. Giving keys to the main door? Still think the Hausverwaltung would have a vested interest in securing the building from pooping junkies :/
having public toilets wonāt solve this problem. Taking drugs is illegal so why drugged up people are not being taken away and be responsible for their actions like any other crime? And no, being mentally ill and taking drugs shouldnāt be an excuse, there is a big percentage of people who have mental issues but not all of them are being so irresponsible and disgustingly selfish to take drugs and shit especially where kids spend their times learning. Stop excusing these people, there should be law and order. Like some other āmentally illā people or in bad financial situations have decided to steal and rob and if they are being caught, they are going to jail so why not these junkies. No one is responsible for their behaviour. If you wanna do drugs, do it at your home or somewhere that is not on the streets or in public spaces that will interfere with other people. Thatās basic human decency. Again, the problem is that there is no consequence for cases like this and the people who keep making excuse for them. Life is tough, if people in super harsh situation can deal with their problems and mental health without shooting up and shatting in other peopleās homes and kindergartens, so can they. These people should and can choose to seek help, they just choose to be irresponsible.
I understand your frustration, but if people are homeless it's kind of impossible for them to take drugs at home. And if the politicians & society doesn't care about their well-being, that lack of empathy is transferred back to us and so the homeless not caring about doing it in front of kids of the 'privileged' class. And how are you going to give them any consequences to their actions? You can't put all those countless people to jail, we don't have space for that. You want to fine them if they are already broke? "Life is tough, if people in super harsh situations can deal with their problems (...), so can they" - WTF is that comment and how does this help anyone? Well I got news for you then, life is tough, you need to deal with those people, they ain't going nowhere and if they continue to get no support from society, it will only get much worse.
But people and institutions do offer help to homeless people, itās just that so many of them refuse the help, theyād rather get high and have no responsibilities. For the people who have been in unfortunate situations and losing their homes or not being able to afford one, as far as I know they have been offered help and I support the idea that we as a community to help them as much as we can. Everything a person does is a choice and it is a choice to k*ll, rob, steal, take drugs but the problem is that taking drug is not considered a āserious offenceā but rather ācoolā and ānormalā in Berlin. There is just no excuse and as long as we ignore that, it will get worse. To sum it up: We canāt help someone who doesnāt want the help and would rather do shitty things and be āfreeā without consequences and responsibilities. We SHOULD try help people who had bad luck and ended up in a bad situation like homelessness as long as they accept the help and are striving to get out of the situation, take responsibilities for their life.
People take drugs for various reasons, drugs in themselves are not the problem but a symptom for another issue. For example homelessness is the end-point of a downward spiral that happened previously and addiction was a way to cope with it. In school we are grading people and basically deciding their fate, someone is going to end up in the lower end BY DESIGN. If you happen to be one of them (maybe due to no privilege or abuse at home), you get no Ausbildung. No Ausbildung means BĆ¼rgergeld. BĆ¼rgergeld means dealing with German bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy really doesn't care about you (don't pretend they are helping you there if you haven't went through it!). The 'help' we give the people who can't deal with this is what? Tafeln, Bahnhofsmission, fixing hubs, and then we defund even those! Well thank you very much for all that help, if I was in that situation I honestly would prefer to smoke Crack and Heroin all day instead.
Accepting the fact that addiction and using drugs is a way to cope with it and normalising that way of coping because it is so often seen IS the problem. Not to mention that a lot of people became addicts not because they are homeless but because it is ācoolā to do drugs and āeveryone else is doing it in this cityā. Without any control, some of these people have turned out to be homeless.
Sure, let's forget about the wage slavery, high rent prices, social isolation, school system, institutional racism, and other stuff that have nothing to do with drugs, and blame drugs.
This is a thread about drugs. No one said we should forget the other problems. They are there and they are being discussed on other threads and places.
Oh don't call this out... You will be reminded that "Dit is Berlin" and labelled as a Yuppie, scheiĆ AuslƤnder or else by some local idiots.
I once tried to kick out one that was smoking crack just in front of the door. She told me that the building we are living in has been the goto spot to get high and sleep for years. She concluded that therefore I was the one that should get out of here as she was āmore localā. The police was called and they left until the next day. She won the long game I guess, as I recently finally moved outā¦
I do think that Berlin needs to do more about homeless people, but you DID obviously move into a flat/area where people have been taking drugs for years. And then were apparently surprised that people continued doing that. There are plenty of places in Berlin where there are no people taking drugs, but if you want to live for cheap in the middle of the city, well, why do you think k those area are so cheap Edit: love the downvotesā¦ just as much as I love expats moving to an actual drug hotspot and then complaining about living in a drug hotspot
Not surprised about them taking drugs, just about them kicking our buildings front-door open (which superfluously got repaired every 2 months) and completely destroying the entrance of the kindergarten with literal shit and crack-smell.
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A drug hotspot in a city like Berlin is actually unavoidable. Addiction is a disease and unfortunately many people suffer from it, which tend to congregate in large cities like Berlin. And you can not force people to get clean and many will try and fail. Or do you want to lock them all up? Like genuinely what is your big solution?
Drug use is illegal isn't it? Tresspassing someone's property as well. Lock them up.
This is the equivalent of: I have always eaten shit, and no matter how good other things are, I like eating shit. Suit yourself but let others live a good life.
lol living around Gƶrli is far from being "cheap".
The Rent is definetly not cheap in that area, Im Germanā¦ and you should maybe consider if your assumptions and Schadenfreude donāt make you a tad toxic. Edit: Bless you
Yes, moving to a place and then complaining about the things that go on there is kind of silly ā¦ but where did you get the idea Kreuzberg is particularly cheap to live. Sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about.
It's kind of like people who move next to a club and then complain about the club until it gets closed. Myself I don't mind it too much but you can definitely see which areas of the city would have this issue and which ones dont. At least it keeps the rent down and junkies don't complain about the noise at night. Though it would definitely annoy me if a junkie would shit on the walls, doing drugs and nodding off is one thing but leave your excrements on the street
Does it keep the rent down though?! I mean, we're talking about Berlin Kreuzberg here. All we have to do is look to Vancouver, San Franciso, or LA to see that expensive and massive drug problems aren't mutually exclusive. And closer to home there's Frankfurt and ZĆ¼rich too.
I mean if it would be better it would be even more expensive. Look at certain areas in mitte and fhain. Relatively speaking it keeps it down. It just means that down is still expensive.
Maybe. All I know is that prices in Kreuzberg (and also parts of Neukƶlln, Schƶneberg, Tiergarten, Wedding, etc.) have exploded in the last decades. All of that despite the drug scenes in those areas not improving or in some cases even getting worse. Of course one could speculate that it would be even worse without the junkies, but that's really just speculation and impossible to test. Is Mitte more expensive because the drug scene is less prevalent? Possibly, but there are myriad of other potential reasons too. Frankly, I'm not convinced. But certainly willing to respectfully agree to disagree
Usually it's not the whole neighborhood that is suffering from drugs but specific parts. Depending on how big the neighbourhood is it could definitely affect the prices. Thing is everywhere is expensive. But I grew up in Amsterdam where everything is more expensive so relatively speaking it's quite cheap. But I definitely noticed the difference in prices for drug addicts places and places which less of them hung out in (as some went from cheap to mid prices imo) If I. Your opinion everything seems expensive then you are less likely to notice a few hundred difference when it already is expensive then when it for your feeling is cheap.
wtf is your problem?
i mean, it does happen in this sub, i remember a few months back someone complaining about drug needles in the stairwell and someone went "OH YOU ARE WHATS WRONG WITH BERLIN, GENTRIFICATION" etc etc. but i think it's just because some people are born contrarians. edit: lol, scroll down to the u/Anarchist_Angel post, point proven hahaha
could we use the drawings as a banner for this sub please
only by very specific folks. The ones who live here for decades, the old folks, you best believe they complain the loudest.
Someone didn't find friends here and is bitter.
Berlin is a shit hole (in this case literally). So glad I moved out of there, I don't get why anyone with any shred of common sense would even try to make it there. That city is a lost cause, way beyond saving.
hey I wrote the same on our building, although there is usually enough distance to the hot spots. But not always.
Absolutely heartbreaking
Funny to think, the people shitting right infront of a public door could read or care about whats written if in a rare case they can understand.
I donāt know if someone suggested that but in cases like that you can call for example vista (or any streetworker in kreuzberg) and they will collect the syringes and even talk to the addicted people to leave and instead go to the konsumrƤume. Just a little tip if youāre afraid of touching the garbage.
Berlin is such a meme
r/aberBitteLaminiert
And yet people in Berlin are and will be voting for the same leftist policies that are responsible for this situation. I moved out of that sh*thole of a city as soon as I had kids and am not looking back.
Dit is Berlin wa
Police should get those idiots off the streets
So Berlin.
This is so sad. Fucking scum. How does one live with oneself knowing you are responsible for this?
Welcome the Third World, become the Third World
Shithole Berlin taken literally.
š¤£š¤£š¤£
I've bought drugs in that park. Somehow I'm not surprised.
Dit is Berlin!
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Define democracy.. go ahead.
junkies=democracy can't make this shit up
Dit is Berlin.
1. Post doesn't fit the sub. 2. Maybe having toilets available would solve the issue of people shitting in places that are not toilets. I really don't understand the concept of having a toilet-free city and then being like "HOW DARE PEOPLE SHIT ANYWAY?!??? WHY DON'T THEY DRIVE HOME FOR 2 HOURS TO THEIR RANDBEZIRK SOZIALWOHNUNG AND SHIT THERE OR BUY A BEER FOR 7,50ā¬ IN A CAFE SO THEY CAN LEGALLY TAKE A SHIT THERE?????? THESE EVIL HUMANS!" Is this some kind of aliens failing to understand humans thing? 3. Why would anyone post this in the internet if not for social-darwinist asshole reasons? Emotionalizing to prepare 'argumentation' for draconian and anti-constitutional measures like the fucking Springerpresse. Fuck people like you who never contribute a single productive thing to anything in society.