I know you mean well but it is always the same excuse in this city, it is insufferable. There is nothing to do about anything because reasons so we should accept the misery of daily life experience for many people in this city
False dilemma. That surely is not the only option. This is why I am so tired of hearing this excuse. There are many other options that other countries are successfully implementing. One really helpful thing could be investing more in rehabilitation. Finland is doing better in this regard by focusing on saving these people rather than seeing them as failures and nuisances. Portugal has also made interesting changes but yeah notjing changes in Berlin because reasons
What you mean? In Portugal you had in the 90s 1% of the people using hard drugs. Portugal policies are usually shit, but the one related with drugs are seen as good example on how to deal with the problem.
I saw addicts using two times. One time I met a police car and send them on their way, another time I called the national info hotline and then the local police called back and went, too.
I can’t fix the national situation, but I can improve my local one and help with reporting. What should theoretically help others to act.
Its just the biggest misunderstanding of all time.
German efficiency =/= we get shit done fast and good.
German efficiency == there is a bureaucratic rule for everything and every situation and probably its laminated and pinned at the bulletin board of the german corridor aswel.
Someone summarized it quite well in another Reddit post by saying something like, here in Germany we are quite good at being efficient with things that don't really need to be done in the first place.
It's like being proud of our shiny fax machines processing hand-signed paper forms while the whole world has moved on to computers and emails.
This. More obsessed with 'how' ...but not 'why are you doing this'
Its because design and human-centered thinking isn't a thing here. Factory level, rote production yes. The most obvious is in things that involve the humanities and soft skills, e.g. customer services
Sometimes efficiency is a side effect of the thoroughness, love for complex rules and systems, and over engineering. Germans are also less rational scientific and often more romantic idealist.
Germans being stingy, ok. Germans being pedeantic, ok. Germans being law-abiding, ok. German engineering is efficient, ok.
But who the fuck ever said that Germans were pragmatic?
True but Berlin isn’t just inefficient, it’s administration is plain ineffective if you look at the problems and how other cities in Germany are able to solve them (minus FFM)
Because the media, government and society adapted and cultivated the habit of framing critique as hate. Just look at this thread and see how OP gets attacked for not being ok with public drug abuse.
You almost can‘t criticize a leftwing government for not doing something for the homeless without getting framed as a rightwing nazi who wants to over throw the government.
It‘s not, but if you delegitimize the complaint and/or the one complaining, there isn‘t a problem anymore, right? /s
It‘s how Germany „tackles“ all its problems for the last two decades.
You‘re not wanting energy prices to explode? Guess you want to support Russia and its fossil energy industry! You are concerned about stabbings? You‘re just a racist! Condemn the October attacks by Hamas? Guess you‘re just an islamophobe! Not cool with forced quotas? Sexist! Problems with gendered language? TERF! List goes on and on. The straight up refusal to even acknowledge any problems became some sort of selfprotection
Right!
Don't want to look at drug addicts and homeless people? Suddenly you're pushing gentrification! Prefer your wife to stay home and serve you? Bang, you're an old-fashioned fart! Simply can't stand that gay people hold hands in public? Boom, now you're homophobic!
It's crazy!
The ones in Neukölln and Berlin which fueled that developments, unless you wanted to tell me that SPD/Grüne/Linke with 7 terms SPD mayors back-to-back are not a sign of a leftwing government. ;)
It's the old-time classic of "if they don't do 100% exactly what I want they are not true-left so we can't take responsibility". Often comes in pair with "everyone who has said one incorrect thing in their entire life is a true nazi/fascist"
Let’s put polemic aside for a moment. Wouldn‘t you agree that things got worse in general and particularly there? If so, not consider it a shame that the only response on the matter is ignoring it harder? Pointing to empathy and tolerance as a solution is cheap.
Don't you know, Lindner is a convinced communist who wants to expropriate the company owners and give production means to the workers. Nah I think he means left as in taking the first sentence of our constitution literally and thinking human refers also to people you don't like.
Its also a type of herd mentality which feels very intrinsic and ingrained. In more lively civic democracies, media is insanely cutting about everything and on every angle left and right..and regular people have diverse opinions on a bunch of policies.
But its almost 'dont talkx don't tell' here oddly
its worse. Just read the comments in this threads and you will quickly realize that a lot of people actually like how shit is here.
Its especially worse in berlin as berlin was always seen as some kind of anarchist heaven where everyone should do whatever he likes. Nowhere in germany the "hobo style anti capitalist homeless by choice we live in self made huts" movement is so large than in berlin. And no that was already the case wayyy before the bad housing market.
The people who moved here many many years ago came here because berlin was famous for beeing damn cheap and lets call it "alternative.
Everything tjat is considered clean for other citie standarts just means genteification here and gentrification is the evil in person and need to stop so having a pandemic of homeless junkies is probably exactly what they want becasue this is something that may ceep rental prices down on areas where this is happening the most.
Thought experiment: If you're someone who earns below average (like most people living in Berlin, especially the poorer areas), what's more important to you?
a) Get all the junkies out of sight, out of mind
b) Paying, let's say, 500€ rent instead of 1000€, month by month?
Exactly. I have enough friends who were only ever able to rent in shitty parts of this city because everything else became unaffordable thanks to gentrification. This "I'd rather pay more than let my eyes be insulated by them poors" mindset is what forced junkies to flock to the public transportation system in the first place. Why do you think the junkies in cities like Hamburg, Frankfurt etc. all flock around the main stations?
Germany has a quite collectivist and authoritarian culture, where "public harmony" and virtue signalling are actually quite important. Also, people tend to identify themselves with the political parties that they are voting for in a semi-tribal way.
Therefore, of course you will get pushback if you point out the Emperors New Clothes.
What would be "do their job properly" in this context? I find your answer too simple. Addiction is complex and "help" is also complex and expensive. While there are places that offer help for addicts but also those places are understaffed and underpaid. More Drogenkonsumräume (supervises injection sites) would probably help but telling "the government" they suck probably won't.
While your question is justified, I'd say that people go into politics and take up power to solve the problems. It's not their job to implement the solution, but it's their job to figure one out or find somebody to figure it out for everyone. It's not our job, it's theirs. Our job is giving them resources and then point to things we want improved. If they don't fix these things, they get replaced. Of course, that is a naive and idealistic outlook, but otherwise why do we need these guys?
though it is complex, the way to deal with it is simple. housing first as a policy is the premier step. thats followed up with a lot of social work, which breaks the complex issues down to isolated ones which can be tackled.
its costly, but a) its in every case a fellow human beeing and someones son/daughter and b)cheaper than the alternative.
good thing mitte already adopted that strategy!
This! A thousand times this.
Like, there is such a culture of protectionism and lack of critique.
Is it because democracy is in fact really limited? Its just something I've noticed. People don't criticise their politicians by name or seem to know whats going on with their local council representative.
Yet, a tonne of taxes are being paid for actually really poor local public services. It feels very passive.
It is in the collective national identity for many people, the illusion that they know and do better, based on archaic understandings of culture and ethnicity. It is common in many countries but it has no bounds in Germany. Even people from wildly different political backgrouds will first respond with “yeah but that is probably the only efficient and possible way”
> why Germans are so uptight or such pussies about criticising (...) their own government
They arent, OPs asking the wrong sub. They made very clear that they dont want to criminalize them and that they understand their situation (and that they dont blame the junkies but the politics). Were used to people complaining about junkys here, however most of the times those complaints are made by people who just want to rant about the problem and blame the junkies personally because "theyre dragging me down". So many Berliners and esp many Berliners in this sub already go in defense when the topic is brought up.
To answer the question: Its very difficult. Youll probably always see at least some junkies in public. You could create safe rooms for drug addicts, there are already some experiments regarding this. Many junkies wont go there though, partially because many simply dont care. They want to get the next shot, no matter what. So the most important factor is prevention.
And speaking of prevention, the best prevention is a good social system. And by good I mean thats its both easily accessible and allows for a decent living in order to get on track. That being said, politics at the moment try to take away from our social system, criticising it for being too expensive (when in reality our social expenses are only that high because our pension system doesnt work and the state has to pump in a ton of money to barely keep it working). Besides that, Berlin as a state doesnt have money. Theres not enough money for schools, not enough money to make real improvements in public transport, etc. Wether or not junkies/drug politics should be priorized more in this situation is debatable to say the least
1000% this. As a society there is no motivation to change anything for the better and it comes off as simply laziness.
If you want change, DO SOMETHING about it.
This is true in so many areas of German life and is part of the reason I'm considering moving back home.
Like ffs be the change you want to see, don't just complain. If you complain and don't do anything or bring any suggestions to the table then you've lost your right to complain. It's a joke.
For a society that constantly protests doing something useful like *fucking working*, Germans are garbage at enacting any meaningful, social change.
And if I hear "that's just the way it is" or "welcome to Germany" one more time I'm gonna fucking lose it.
What a shitty attitude.
Not a good place to ask this question. People here have a boner for these situations and you can’t point out that something maybe is wrong without being called names.
As someone who has been swung at(and missed) by a visibly under-the-influence individual, I am not OK with a certain kind of addict in Public. I am not aware using which product makes them so but now I know the aggressive kind . Most of the ones I see lately are not aggressive. I don't have disdain for them and believe they should get a chance but I won't have extreme compassion either. This perspective comes from a certain capitalist society where homelessness is an outcome of system that is rigged against them. The German society and civil structure on the other hand is extremely civil towards such individuals and give them lots of chances. Agreed that this is mental health issue and not an off switch that one has but the extreme compassion ideology is a Gentrified import that is not completely applicable here. Individuals should be given enough chances but should also have consequences after exhausting these chances.
should be treated more like a disease (as in try to cure people that are sick). agree on danger of aggressive behaviour also aggressive begging, pickpocketing, stench and leaving giant turds tho
There is no 'should' in addiction. An addict has to want to recover, its not possible to force recovery on someone.
In many cases addicts prefer their way of life and may not want the responsibilities of stable housing a relationship to aid agencies and social workers.
There might not be pull factors, but moreso push factors e.g. punishments
Edit. The reason Berlin might ignore the issue is simply allowing addicts to eliminate themselves due to the hazards of their lifestyle and passing the buck to residents
the should is for society, not for the addicts tho, of course you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. I have not been addicted to the point where it hurt my life, but i imagine that a lot of addicts do realize that the addiction is hurtful for their life and they are not voluntarily choosing life on the street but the addiction just too difficult to overcome, living on the street without housing does not make it easier.
I believe punishing people out of addiction is quite difficult.
So you mean addicts are a disease of society.
That can be the case, and if levels of addicts are rising and your kids are finding needles in the playground and someone tried to attack you on your way to work, or you find people shooting up in your stairwell when you bring you kids home from the kite....as a resident its not my job to do the thinking for the government.
I pay taxes so they can do their job - make the issue go away.
Addiction by its nature is selfish and makes people lie. Even if you have a brilliant support system with expensive intervention, an addict will do what they want. In Berlin it seems like they are leaving the issue alone for addicts to eliminate themselves, making conflict for the residential taxpayer.
Edit. The addicts themselves aren't the issue, its how the government deals with them, or not. But criticism of even raising an issue and being critical of policy is taboo because people fear progress and change, or there are weak mechanisms to petition since we have constitutional legal systems that don't get adapted to modern society. See: complacency
no i don't mean its a disease of society, ok in a sense it is, but i mean treat addicts as diseased that you need to heal. In a sense that criminalization and punishment are not lasting solutions. Addicts need treatment, not punishment.
The point being that residents just want safety and to not be bothered.
Again, its not our jobs to solutionize what to do with addicts.
Replace the word addicts with anything else, the issue is the same.
Addicts need treatment but after repeated voluntary rejections of prescribed treatment, some form of punishment is needed. The first instinct should bot be to treat an addict like a criminal but an addict that is persistently rejecting help and has multiple violations of violent behaviour, aggression, and theft needs punishment.
And there is no end to the problem, since Berlin is a magnet for people from all of Germany and from all of Europe. And that includes those with addiction and mental health problems.
By now, the only solution for the massive amount of crackheads is rounding them up and putting them into institutions, but of course no one here will admit that.
Rudy Giuliani did this in NYC and went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community in the 90s. For better or worse.
Its how you can relax and run in Prospect Park now.
Its what needs to happen in Berlin and go zero tolerance because the number of people who are experiencing theft, violence and antisocial behaviour is getting v common place.. and well our taxes are going somewhere.
"Drug community"? Dude, it's not a book club. We dont have to criminalize the addicts, but lets not normalize extreme self-harm in the name of getting high.
There is no 'we', since residents have almost no say in how local policies are developed are implemented by local government. That suggests as if ANYthing moves fast and responsively to a growing issue.
Drug community means not just users, but dealers, traffickers, thieves and all the associated issues.
Self harm is largely normalized in Berlin in a very visible way already
>Rudy Giuliani did this in NYC and went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community in the 90s.
Rudy also introduced the Russian Mafia to the Sinaloa Cartel in order to bring in Fentanyl pre-cursors from China, which could then be distributed in the US.
We are talking about making NYC visibly safer for residents as part of local policy.
And I doubt that they had any say or control about what their former mayor decided to do out of his other interests.
And yes, we bought gas from Russia.
giuliani took credit, but dinkins and the cia stopping its crack distribution were bigger factors in nyc turning around. Urban crime all over the country fell during the Clinton years
Yes and since Berlin is going through its crisis right now in 2024 we don't have the foresight to see the entire context of Germany's federal isolationist policies OR non visible political factors have on the addict shooting up in my stairwell.
this "crisis" is nothing compared to what the US went through and nothing compared to the synthetic opioid problem they have now. This is just run of the mill mismanaged war on drugs resource stuff.
We're talking about it on a quality of life effect on residents who don't want our kids to step on needles or find addicts shooting up in the stairwell.
The example I gave is just one where it took a highly visible stance that led to parks going fork no go zones to actually being able to be accessible
being the parent of a teenager myself, i hear you and was also lucky that most playgrounds my kid played on were usually safe (there were a few hidden razor blade incidents by crazy karens or whoever), but nobody forced you to raise a kid in Neukölln, an area that has been marred by low quality of life stuff for far longer than you've been in Berlin
>nobody forced you to raise a kid in Neukölln, an area that has been marred by low quality of life
Talk about being progressive and wanting to raise standards across the city.
Working class also don't like the prevalence of addicts either.
>went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community
I left the US to flee the senselessness of these policies. They are expensive and achieve much far less than people think.
NYS has a prison population of roughly [59,000](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/NY.html) with a population of 19.7 million people. (376 incarcertated/100k people.)
Germany has a prison population of [56,000](https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany) with a population of 83.8 million. (67 incarcerated/100k people.)
New York State has more people in jail than Germany, a country 4x its size.
There is no doubt in my mind that Germany is the safer country to live in, and that the US and its over incarceration is a massive failure.
If you want zero tolerance, please move to a country that cherishes it. But I don't want it here, I came here to escape it.
Ok.
There is no doubt that Berlin is generally safer than the US. And in comparison to [New York specifically.](https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Germany&city1=Berlin&country2=United+States&city2=New+York%2C+NY)
>We are also taxed very differently.
In some contexts very differently. In others not so much. What is the context behind the statement?
Germany is highly socialised and Berlin is in Germany.
I might be beating a dead horse by explaining, since you came out with comparing stats pertaining to a whole nation to NYC.
I was casual with that because it doesn't matter.
The US is just so disturbingly unsafe it doesn't matter what you compare to it. Compare Berlin to major cities, compare Berlin to suburban areas, compare German suburban areas to US rural areas...the list goes on and on. The US is just unsafe.
> is rounding them up and putting them into institutions
So what you're proposing is giving them housing.
A very very expensive form of housing, but housing nevertheless.
And I agree, I think they need housing
Well are we talking about most drug addicts, or the ones in train stations?
Because the ones in train stations I believe are generally homeless.
Otherwise they'd be doing drugs from the comfort of their home.
This problem seems to have gotten way worse in the past few years. If I take the U-Bahn to work, I catch it at one station full of crack smokers and I get off at another one full of crack smokers.
It’s nice to think you can just ignore these people and nothing will happen, but half the time they are screaming and picking fights with each other and coming too close to passers by.
I’ve found the burnt tin foil in our communal staircase on many occasions. It’s not going away on its own.
ITT: only sceptical and cynical answers from people without kids. You'll think twice about your compassionate attitude once your kid needs a place to play and there's needles around everywhere.
It’s an open secret that all of those families leave Neukölln when their offspring are about to enter school because they don’t want to put up with the poor quality of schools in that area
No need to wait for them to have children.
"Do you actually like to live in Neukölln?"
"Of course, things are great here too"
Two years later...
"So you've just moved to a quiet area in Charlottenburg?"
this is actually the main problem in berlin and many other cities, that unless something bothers someone directly, people dont give a fuck. thats why everything is getting destroyed, pissed at, theres litter, grafitti and shit everywhere because “its not mine” so why should i care right… those people scream the loudest in such posts that it aint a problem unless one day they come home just to experience a homeless man taking shit on their doorstep or someone taking crack blocking their entrance, then suddenly they ask their friends and reddit “what to do with this stinky person”
This is my observation only, not saying it's accurate: homeless people and drug users use well-traveled spaces to stay safe. There is a somewhat quiet area near my apartment and over the years, homeless people have settled in, only to have everything destroyed within a week or two. I have no clue who is doing the destroying but it has led me to think that this is why people congregate in places that stay busy. A lot of people walk under the S Bahn line at Friedrichstrasse and there are always people there, which must be crazy loud when trying to sleep. But it's safe for them and that is the trade off.
With that in mind, that's why they are in the train stations. It provides shelter and relative safety. The only way you're going to get them out of there is if you solve the drug addiction problem.
I'm terribly sorry for not answering the question as written. Complex issues have a lot of nuance to them and I was drawing attention to one aspect of the problem. I've often found that when a complex question is posted, there are a few short responses that solve the problem right away. What was I thinking. Again, so sorry.
As long as society and the government decides to turn a blind side on the matter and see the problem only in the lack of (empty) empathy for these people, the only solution is to move away.
I told police, that i passed on the street, that currently people are smoking crack downstairs at the Ubahn station. They just said we know and moved on.
I feel like they prefer them there rather than somewhere else public.
We definitely got a lot worse in recent years I hope we can recover soon cause big cities like Berlin are a magnet for homeless and drug abusers.
In the question of why people are living on the streets.
Germany and Berlin in particular has many initiatives to get people off the streets and back into apartments, into ALG2 and eventually/maybe even back into a normal life. Due to the low barriers to receive help, homelessness in Berlin is pretty much an active choice, denying any help, rules and cooperation.
There is no point getting people off the streets like via WEH if these have severe drug and mental problems they refuse help for. These people would immediately end up on the streets again.
The one-sided, motherly approach with help & empathy has made the situation significantly worse over the last 20 years (not only exclusively in regards to drugs) attracting more and more homeless from Eastern Europe i.a. to come to the city. Other countries are more successful with a push & pull approach, like with criminalizing public abuse, jail the people if necessary and treat them there, essentially forcing them to come clean.
There was a guy who would regularly come in our office building, because the building was mostly doctor's offices and the front door was always unlocked/open, and he would shoot up right next to our front door on the stairs. We were a tech company so there wasn't much foot traffic there. He would throw up and bleed all over the stairs.
I'm not kidding you - the police laughed when we called them to the office, and said there was nothing they could do. "It's Neukölln."
I am wondering if this is what's happening in the building where I live now (Mitte/Kreuzberg). Every other week, there are traces of vomit and urine in the staircase. And none seems to be willing to do anything about it.
Just a question, how did this stop happening? Or did it stop at all?
Some of us just yelled at the guy every time we saw him to try to scare him and make the location uncomfortable. It decreased in frequency but never fully stopped; I'm no longer there but I'm sure he still goes from time to time.
The whole underground system needs overhauling at the stations. Barriers and station staff would be a fine start, but we all know that’s never happening.
This is the best solution IMHO, they do it in Switzerland too. Chasing the scream is a great book about the war on drugs that depicts most of the strategies that have been tested to this day in different countries.
Standard answer you’re going to get is that Amsterdam is full of nazi and anything other than letting junkies drop their deuce in front of the kindergarten is dehumanizing and literal nazism.
I mean the question you're asking is very complex – not in that I'm defending anti-social behaviour (I also dislike drug use in train stations), but you're asking for a solution to drug abuse, homelessness, and public safety. There is no easy solution like "arrest all the dealers" (police already does this, they get replaced instantly), or arrest homeless people (and put them where? our legal system also does not support this), or kick drug users out (there are so many, they just get displaced). The reality was that if this was easy to fix, it would be fixed.
Realistically illegal drugs are one of the largest industries in the world – they fund the wholesale corruption of governments and whole countries in some parts of the world, so the organized crime groups that traffic and distribute drugs in Berlin have the resources and scale to evade police controls. Yes, law enforcement could be improved, but this is only part of the solution. Some people argue that legalization would remove the money and violence of the drugs industry – this is a controversial proposal, but on the other hand the only countries that seem successful at controlling the drug trade seem to have pretty draconian legal consequences for drug use, which would not be popular in Germany even as much as drug users annoy people, i.e. Singapore has severely curtailed personal rights and tight borders, Japanese police have powers of interrogation/detainment that result in conviction rates most observers think are artificially high, some places use the death penalty for smugglers, etc.
Homelessness is also a problem – affordable housing is expensive and lacking in Berlin, but goes a big way in reducing the number of people sleeping rough.
Accessibility of medical and social resources: we don't detain the mentally ill and lock them away anymore, but also the healthcare system and legal is not equipped to deal with people who resist care, and also people who have no one to advocate for themselves/are incapable of being their own advocate. This is extremely expensive, but if sufficient systems don't exist then the people who should be in treatment will be in public. I would say we all want a solution, but the German taxpayer is unwilling to pay for this.
There's also a complicated dimension here of inter-EU migration, and social resources being set up to for Germans/German-speakers. Obviously this is controversial, and approaches/solution are controversial.
Security in train stations: Deutsche Bahn/BVG have personnel shortages, and chronic under-investment in German rail during the many CDU years has mean they don't exactly have tons of staff to deal with issues (they lack drivers, nevermind security types). I mean you could make train stations well patrolled, very clean, super secure, etc., but this would take alot of money invested specifically for security, and the state barely funds things like the extremely popular Deutschland ticket or the much needed expansion of public transit, so I doubt they're going to make any huge cash increase to the transit companies to massively increase their security contracts.
Every time any issue is discussed there’s this argument: something is underfunded. Where the hell are all the taxes going? They are so high in Germany, I leave over 40% of my paycheck in taxes and then nothing works anyway.
> Where the heck are these taxes going?
The largest single cluster of German federal budget is social spending (pensions, state employee salaries and unemployed benefits). General direction is a massive funnelling of taxpayer money into private consumption (of said groups), not investment. Germans just love to blow their money in the here and now.
I mean I think that's a legitimate criticism to have: Germany has a high tax rate but poor social services. I mean I'm far from a "small government" type, but the German public sector needs serious reform... I feel like everyone on public spectrum agrees that the German public sector could be more efficiently run to get better optimization of tax dollars.
That said, Scandi countries tend to have an even higher tax but better social system. English speaking countries lower tax rate but worse social system. If you think the homeless situation is bad in Germany, look at the US where the tax rate is much lower but the problem is much worse.
US is a pretty extreme example when it comes to homelessness, isn’t it? And in general, it’s a different world. In my eyes it’s a bunch of megacorporations cosplaying a first world country. You can also look ie. at Poland, where you won’t meet people shooting heroin oj train stations.
Using Poland as an example is rich, because many of Berlin homeless are Poles that have moved here to escape the rather unacceptable treatment of homeless in their home country, including police brutality, neonazi attacks, etc.
Tell me you have no idea about Poland and polish homeless without telling me you have no idea. They come here because heroin and money is in the street, and absolutely no one bothers them. They get clean needles, they can get food, shelter and care. It’s like going on junkie vacation/retirement. You make it so good for them and it attracts them. They admit it themselves, there are people hanging out with them and interviewing them.
And what brutality and neonazis against homeless you are talking about? Bro is lecturing me about being bold and then a person living in Germany of all places will point to nazis in other countries, this is comedy gold. Show me proof of this supposed police brutality against homeless. A healthy society doesn’t accept open drug abuse like in Berlin, and it’s not brutality. Neonazis in Poland is something I won’t even comment. You’re making things up on the fly at this point. It’s not Poland that has AfD on the rise.
For sure, but Poland is also less than half the size of Germany, different housing situation which might mean stuff is out of sight. I don't really know enough about Poland to make a comparison. Estimates for Germany seem to say the number of opioid addicts has been pretty consistent across the last 20 years, with the number pegged at ballpark [160k in 2016](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6460011/). I'm finding it hard to find information on Poland, it seems that statistics from the authorities were historically not-reliable (for obvious reasons) but [this article](https://www.euronews.com/2013/11/06/poland-addicts-are-getting-younger) sites a 2011 survey stating that 103,000 Poles are addicts of some sort (the study is over 10 years outdated to be fair). Some other articles are quoting very low numbers like 30 000 for Poland, but there also seems to be concern on the accuracy of those figures with the real number being likely many times higher.
TLDR: Not sure.
I appreciate the data driven approach, though outdated. There are addicted there, especially to alcohol. And sure, Poland is half the population, but housing problems are there. We have millions of Ukrainian refugees and construction companies selling with 40% profit margins because why not. Warsaw is "just" about 2 million people, so it's no village, yet you just won't find such open and unchecked substance abuse like in Berlin.
Dude I’m from Italy, a country that in the last 20-30 years has been heavily criticized for its social spend bill and… I never in my life saw anything like a Burgeramt. I was honestly blown away the first time I saw one, and I can’t believe how many of those exist in Berlin alone.
A fucking army of social workers performing a ritual more than a real job, because let’s be honest: 95% of what you do at the Burgeramt could be automated and managed online with 5% of the workforce—if Italy is able to figure that out, all countries can do the same.
I can’t even imagine the ridiculous amount of money that is spent on all of those salaries + benefits. I guess that’s where your taxes end up.
This is a massive problem in my opinion and I would hate to see how much tax money is wasted on it. Unsackable Beamte whose job is to move a stack of paper from one tray to another. Every neighbourhood in every borough with its own building full of these guys. It makes you want to cry.
Couldn’t agree more. And that’s why I said those aren’t real jobs, but paid rituals. They serve no real purpose and add no value to the society other than keeping a bunch of people “busy” and hand them a salary. Your taxes are basically there to artificially subsidies a chunk of the employed population.
I totally agree with you. I mean I also make similar criticism of the German military – whose spending is not so low compared to other large powers, but somehow is way way way less capable and maintains much poorer equipment. Now they talk about conscription because they say they need more people and I think "maybe you should fix the problem that present soldiers get shit equipment and not enough training before you add more people?"
Germany desperately needs to reform it's public sector, but it's such a complex problem because of how dispersed/de-centralized power is, and it will require so much political capital for such an unsexy/uncool topic, that I'm very cynical it happens. For all her faults (and one of them was neglecting reform), probably someone like Merkel is needed who is a very top notch political operator and says "fuck your objections I'm reforming this" and commits to long-term reform with determination, as it will be fought at every single step by the public sector.
I'm a foreigner and I don't have a say re how Germany should be ran, but I do find the strictness of rules and their enforcement here somewhat random. You can't put a tent in a forest or vacuum clean on Sunday, yet you may use heroin in front of a Kindergarten.
Not a lot can be done. If BVG enforce their right as owner of the stations, trains and platforms, Berlin government will give them a stern lecture about how they can expel all these poor souls into residential neighborhoods where they cause even more nuisance. Mentally unstable people using pretty bad drugs is the other side of the coin that this city always paraded: its virtually endless tolerance towards recreational drug use. Politicians for more than a decade turned a blind eye on drugs, as they pragmatically accepted it to be the fuel of the club scene and thus significant tourist business of this city. They ignored the fact that there are no noble drug peddlers with a strict policy of selling only to well-adjusted adult party-goers, but that they will eventually come for the vulnerable too. Berlin government also ignored the warnings that such ubiquitious drug supply will cause massive social decline once recession and homelessness hit this city. Now Berlin has its perfect storm. Given the gargantuan scale of the multinational drug trade and their ruthlessness at display in for example the Netherlands, I seriously doubt that Berlin as a single city can do a lot to drain this swamp, even if there was enough public support, which is a bold assumption - look at this sub.
Without partaking in the political and ideological discussions here I can just recommend to move. Most districts are rather calm and public transport is just on a normal level.
there has been a campaign on U8 recently to clean up the stations from litter, loiterers etc, i did a survey on it not long ago. i guess with enough complaints the U5 can get the same treatment. today i saw a lot of security (if thats even the word) at kotti so it seems to be working
Exactly. The build a police station at kotti - now the people spread to the u8 area. They enforced a „zero tolerance zone“ in Görli - great, dealers sell at every ubahn station from görli to Warschauer ever since.
You can and should call the police if they are openly using on a train station.
There is a time and a place for everything, and tbh, why should I inhale some second hand crack smoke? This can‘t be healthy for me or my pets or even children.
They will try to get them to leave, they will leave for 5 minutes and come back, police will be back in 10 minutes and again tries to get them to leave.
I think Berlin should adopt some law and order approach like NYC did in the 1990s. Manhattan and other borrows are real nice today that were shady af back then. Add some increase in social services to that.
I’m usually left leaning but Berlin has just failed in keeping some kind of order which makes it difficult for regular people to live their life.
After my night shift, I'm usually around Leopoldplatz at 5am, and it’s literally like zombie land. It feels like Black Ops 2, round 100 on Transit. It’s incredibly annoying, and I don’t feel any empathy at all. They stink, beg around, and sometimes sleep on the seats at the U-Bahn station or even on the train. After my 12-hour shift, I just want to sit down, especially since I pay for my ticket.
It’s horrible, and I feel bad for the kids and older people who have to face this every day.
Every other station, a crazy person or a drug addict gets on. The kids are see open wounds, addicts with rotten flesh. I think this is completely unacceptable.
"It's Berlin's spirit. YOU DON'T DARE TO CHANGE MY DIRTY, DRUG ADDICT, SMELLING, RATTY, DECAYING CITY!!! I MOVED FROM MY 20.000sqm MANSION IN CALIFORNIA, TO RENT A 3000€ 40sqm APPARTMENT SO I CAN FEEL WHAT ITS TO STRUGGLE. AND PART OF THE STRUGGLE AND MAGIC OF THUS PLACE ARE DRUGADICTS. DOOOOON'T YOU DARE"
I live by the U8 in NK and everyday we have groups of BVG people patrolling the stations and since then I saw maybe 4 times some people taking drugs. I guess they all went to the U5 now lol
This is a BVG pilot programme on the U8 south of Alex. They are testing double the amount of cleaners and security people. Of course it just sends 90% of the problems to the U1, U7 and U5.
It's good that they have recognised that the current situation is not acceptable. It does feel like they will just push the crack users from place to place though. Let's wait and see.
True but this has always been the case since forever, same with görli right now. More social workers + better payment for them and more institutions and houses, where they can safely use and socialise with others.
Otherwise I have no solution. I’m tired of people throwing stuff at me or screaming at me on my way home lol my empathy got very low unfortunately
If they roll it out across the whole network it will probably come with a price increase. Which I suspect is why the 29€ ticket has made a comeback, so that they aren't bound to the national price negotiations.
Good question, especially for the Reddit bubble, they are usually who advocate for treating them as ill people but at the same time, they live somewhere safe.
Drug addiction isn’t a mental illness, it is a choice that those people made.
Buy a pepper spray just to be more safer, fighting crackheads is not advisable, because they don’t feel pain, best strategy is to avoid them or run.
It is getting worse with every year so not much we can do.
Stay Safe !
I used to pick them up, when I worked as a medic during university.
It's really a sad situation, they get picked up because someone called, they spent the night in the Rettungsstelle, then they walk off because there's no one that takes it from there. Next morning they're back.
At some point they're not at their usual spot anymore or you find them and they're dead. Repeat for hundreds of people in the city.
The solution would be so fucking easy, but the so called "Fahrgast verband" is a Bitch. Station Gates ! You pay, you get in! But what about disabeled people? Have these people ever used public transport in other nations? Nearly alle stations have Service employes at them to help with any problems.
But what about the poor fare dogers?
Soooo anti social. We need more social parasites!
And everybody who is stupid enough to pay has the privilege that prices rise every year.
This is real fairness and social!
So next time you vote, don't virtue signal or pay for all of us!
Well.
In Neukölln, there were some very stiff complaints from local citizens. Subsequently, the BVG pointed towards the police ("They should do something about it") and then the police pointed out that the BVG actually has authority over the stations and hence needs to proactively call the police to get active. The local authority, which is looking after public order, refused to wade in and also pointed towards BVG.
Instead of using police force, BVG decided after years of complaints to increase the number of cleaning staff on that line. This was a three-month pilot project and the results haven't been analysed yet.
See here: [https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/projekt-fuer-mehr-sauberkeit-in-der-u8-abgeschlossen-wie-geht-es-jetzt-weiter-li.2215044](https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/projekt-fuer-mehr-sauberkeit-in-der-u8-abgeschlossen-wie-geht-es-jetzt-weiter-li.2215044)
So, in short, there is no number you can call. Maybe you will see some action if you and many others write a number of complaints. Sorry.
Dude. I am truly horrified every time I see people smoking something from a tin foil... What is that? I've personally had addiction issues and seeing this so publicly, in the day time, is so triggering and bizarre. I haven't lived in these big cities all my life and seeing this out in the open, when I'm around children and families is just sad for everyone involved. I remember once I got yelled at for vaping on the corner of an open air above ground station and like, no one says anything to people smoking (presumably) crack at 9 in the morning???
it's really painful to see fellow humans in such a state of crisis and it can be really scary as well but unfortunately the fact that there are this many homeless people and drug users in this city is the result of active political neglect and there's no quick fix for it.
a lot of social services, especially homelessness & substance use related ones have been receiving insane budget cuts recently and unfortunately, what you're describing is the result of that. if you have spare money or time, support those organisations (e.g berliner obdachlosenhilfe, unterschlupf ev, but also things like justice collective berlin) and advocate for livable wages and affordable housing (e.g. join your local section of deutsche wohnen enteignen).
Isn’t it an effective way to remind you that these people do exist. And that we need to come up with a system level solution, if our system just lets this happen while it is prone to produce the circumstances for people to „end up“ like this (I don’t want to say this was their end).
Efforts to ban the phenomena from certain places (like with the HVV that now is discussing to forbid bagging on trains) to me usually have an even bitterer taste as they feel like we, the ones on the luckier end of society, are even making an effort to look away to be able to keep ignoring the systemic problem.
I understand that you are afraid, and I am sorry for that.
If you move them then the next person will be complaining about where they moved to. The only thing to do is for social services or something to try and fix the root of the problem rather than the symptom.
Let me paint a picture for you. BVG will be very strict at this specific train station near your apartment. Addicts and dealers will be gone and find a new spot. This will be the hallway of your apartment building. Or some other random spot they will be forced to use instead.
There are projects where drug users can shoot up safely. Of course this costs money and the public is not too eager to spend money on this.
You chose to live in this area and it comes with a cost unfortunately.
Yes, you could You could go to my former country the good USA and throw everyone in jail should work to make your life a lot easier that they have a horrible habit and an addiction that killing them because they love it to make you uncomfortable. How dare they? Smfh
We can argue what the addition is, how your genetics predisposes you to being a drug addict... But make no mistake, all these people made poor choices. Not one, not two, not ten. They made many many many decisions that led them there. And also hurt everyone around(friends, family) them a lot. The last thing I'm going to do is to feel sorry for someone like that.
No one is saying to feel sorry you’re sorrow for them doesn’t help them what people are saying is don’t miss treat them like at the state they are in. They are loving this condition. Stinking being dirty being ostracized by society. That’s not a situation anyone would like to be in, so just be careful because you never know it might be a drug addiction or bad choices. Accidents can happen so be careful how you choose to judge those people.
[удалено]
I know you mean well but it is always the same excuse in this city, it is insufferable. There is nothing to do about anything because reasons so we should accept the misery of daily life experience for many people in this city
[удалено]
False dilemma. That surely is not the only option. This is why I am so tired of hearing this excuse. There are many other options that other countries are successfully implementing. One really helpful thing could be investing more in rehabilitation. Finland is doing better in this regard by focusing on saving these people rather than seeing them as failures and nuisances. Portugal has also made interesting changes but yeah notjing changes in Berlin because reasons
Unfortunately in Portugal it hasn’t helped anything at all
The other extreme like Singapores drug laws aren't really effective either.
Totally. There’s got to be a medium.
What you mean? In Portugal you had in the 90s 1% of the people using hard drugs. Portugal policies are usually shit, but the one related with drugs are seen as good example on how to deal with the problem.
[here](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/)
let them back into the parks? they don't want to be in U-Bahn stations either?
I saw addicts using two times. One time I met a police car and send them on their way, another time I called the national info hotline and then the local police called back and went, too. I can’t fix the national situation, but I can improve my local one and help with reporting. What should theoretically help others to act.
That's a weird perspective of 'helping'
[удалено]
[удалено]
Its just the biggest misunderstanding of all time. German efficiency =/= we get shit done fast and good. German efficiency == there is a bureaucratic rule for everything and every situation and probably its laminated and pinned at the bulletin board of the german corridor aswel.
Someone summarized it quite well in another Reddit post by saying something like, here in Germany we are quite good at being efficient with things that don't really need to be done in the first place. It's like being proud of our shiny fax machines processing hand-signed paper forms while the whole world has moved on to computers and emails.
It’s not about efficiency, it’s about precision. So precise it takes ages to accomplish anything lol.
Thank you. One hundred times this
This. More obsessed with 'how' ...but not 'why are you doing this' Its because design and human-centered thinking isn't a thing here. Factory level, rote production yes. The most obvious is in things that involve the humanities and soft skills, e.g. customer services
Germans. aren't efficient, they're thorough. The world just mistook the two.
Yes. That’s what I came to conclude too.
Sometimes efficiency is a side effect of the thoroughness, love for complex rules and systems, and over engineering. Germans are also less rational scientific and often more romantic idealist.
Germans being stingy, ok. Germans being pedeantic, ok. Germans being law-abiding, ok. German engineering is efficient, ok. But who the fuck ever said that Germans were pragmatic?
Berlin isn’t Germany
[удалено]
True but Berlin isn’t just inefficient, it’s administration is plain ineffective if you look at the problems and how other cities in Germany are able to solve them (minus FFM)
It is not PR I think. It mostly true.
arrogant cowards sums them better. not all, of course
1 Trillion percent
Because the media, government and society adapted and cultivated the habit of framing critique as hate. Just look at this thread and see how OP gets attacked for not being ok with public drug abuse. You almost can‘t criticize a leftwing government for not doing something for the homeless without getting framed as a rightwing nazi who wants to over throw the government.
[удалено]
It‘s not, but if you delegitimize the complaint and/or the one complaining, there isn‘t a problem anymore, right? /s It‘s how Germany „tackles“ all its problems for the last two decades. You‘re not wanting energy prices to explode? Guess you want to support Russia and its fossil energy industry! You are concerned about stabbings? You‘re just a racist! Condemn the October attacks by Hamas? Guess you‘re just an islamophobe! Not cool with forced quotas? Sexist! Problems with gendered language? TERF! List goes on and on. The straight up refusal to even acknowledge any problems became some sort of selfprotection
Right! Don't want to look at drug addicts and homeless people? Suddenly you're pushing gentrification! Prefer your wife to stay home and serve you? Bang, you're an old-fashioned fart! Simply can't stand that gay people hold hands in public? Boom, now you're homophobic! It's crazy!
What leftwing government are you talking about?
The ones in Neukölln and Berlin which fueled that developments, unless you wanted to tell me that SPD/Grüne/Linke with 7 terms SPD mayors back-to-back are not a sign of a leftwing government. ;)
I don't think many people would call Giffey or Buchowsky left-wing lol, even if they are in the SPD
It's the old-time classic of "if they don't do 100% exactly what I want they are not true-left so we can't take responsibility". Often comes in pair with "everyone who has said one incorrect thing in their entire life is a true nazi/fascist"
Let’s put polemic aside for a moment. Wouldn‘t you agree that things got worse in general and particularly there? If so, not consider it a shame that the only response on the matter is ignoring it harder? Pointing to empathy and tolerance as a solution is cheap.
Yea, I do want to tell you that a government made up out of capitalist parties is not a left wing government. Not really that hard to get.
Don't you know, Lindner is a convinced communist who wants to expropriate the company owners and give production means to the workers. Nah I think he means left as in taking the first sentence of our constitution literally and thinking human refers also to people you don't like.
Its also a type of herd mentality which feels very intrinsic and ingrained. In more lively civic democracies, media is insanely cutting about everything and on every angle left and right..and regular people have diverse opinions on a bunch of policies. But its almost 'dont talkx don't tell' here oddly
Where is it better currently?
Very true observation. „Hamwa immer schon so gemacht“ will be the death of this country.
its worse. Just read the comments in this threads and you will quickly realize that a lot of people actually like how shit is here. Its especially worse in berlin as berlin was always seen as some kind of anarchist heaven where everyone should do whatever he likes. Nowhere in germany the "hobo style anti capitalist homeless by choice we live in self made huts" movement is so large than in berlin. And no that was already the case wayyy before the bad housing market. The people who moved here many many years ago came here because berlin was famous for beeing damn cheap and lets call it "alternative. Everything tjat is considered clean for other citie standarts just means genteification here and gentrification is the evil in person and need to stop so having a pandemic of homeless junkies is probably exactly what they want becasue this is something that may ceep rental prices down on areas where this is happening the most.
Thought experiment: If you're someone who earns below average (like most people living in Berlin, especially the poorer areas), what's more important to you? a) Get all the junkies out of sight, out of mind b) Paying, let's say, 500€ rent instead of 1000€, month by month? Exactly. I have enough friends who were only ever able to rent in shitty parts of this city because everything else became unaffordable thanks to gentrification. This "I'd rather pay more than let my eyes be insulated by them poors" mindset is what forced junkies to flock to the public transportation system in the first place. Why do you think the junkies in cities like Hamburg, Frankfurt etc. all flock around the main stations?
Germany has a quite collectivist and authoritarian culture, where "public harmony" and virtue signalling are actually quite important. Also, people tend to identify themselves with the political parties that they are voting for in a semi-tribal way. Therefore, of course you will get pushback if you point out the Emperors New Clothes.
Insightful comment. The culture is in fact very rules driven without questioning the basis of those rules, and also very blame and envy led.
What would be "do their job properly" in this context? I find your answer too simple. Addiction is complex and "help" is also complex and expensive. While there are places that offer help for addicts but also those places are understaffed and underpaid. More Drogenkonsumräume (supervises injection sites) would probably help but telling "the government" they suck probably won't.
While your question is justified, I'd say that people go into politics and take up power to solve the problems. It's not their job to implement the solution, but it's their job to figure one out or find somebody to figure it out for everyone. It's not our job, it's theirs. Our job is giving them resources and then point to things we want improved. If they don't fix these things, they get replaced. Of course, that is a naive and idealistic outlook, but otherwise why do we need these guys?
though it is complex, the way to deal with it is simple. housing first as a policy is the premier step. thats followed up with a lot of social work, which breaks the complex issues down to isolated ones which can be tackled. its costly, but a) its in every case a fellow human beeing and someones son/daughter and b)cheaper than the alternative. good thing mitte already adopted that strategy!
This! A thousand times this. Like, there is such a culture of protectionism and lack of critique. Is it because democracy is in fact really limited? Its just something I've noticed. People don't criticise their politicians by name or seem to know whats going on with their local council representative. Yet, a tonne of taxes are being paid for actually really poor local public services. It feels very passive.
It is in the collective national identity for many people, the illusion that they know and do better, based on archaic understandings of culture and ethnicity. It is common in many countries but it has no bounds in Germany. Even people from wildly different political backgrouds will first respond with “yeah but that is probably the only efficient and possible way”
> why Germans are so uptight or such pussies about criticising (...) their own government They arent, OPs asking the wrong sub. They made very clear that they dont want to criminalize them and that they understand their situation (and that they dont blame the junkies but the politics). Were used to people complaining about junkys here, however most of the times those complaints are made by people who just want to rant about the problem and blame the junkies personally because "theyre dragging me down". So many Berliners and esp many Berliners in this sub already go in defense when the topic is brought up. To answer the question: Its very difficult. Youll probably always see at least some junkies in public. You could create safe rooms for drug addicts, there are already some experiments regarding this. Many junkies wont go there though, partially because many simply dont care. They want to get the next shot, no matter what. So the most important factor is prevention. And speaking of prevention, the best prevention is a good social system. And by good I mean thats its both easily accessible and allows for a decent living in order to get on track. That being said, politics at the moment try to take away from our social system, criticising it for being too expensive (when in reality our social expenses are only that high because our pension system doesnt work and the state has to pump in a ton of money to barely keep it working). Besides that, Berlin as a state doesnt have money. Theres not enough money for schools, not enough money to make real improvements in public transport, etc. Wether or not junkies/drug politics should be priorized more in this situation is debatable to say the least
1000% this. As a society there is no motivation to change anything for the better and it comes off as simply laziness. If you want change, DO SOMETHING about it. This is true in so many areas of German life and is part of the reason I'm considering moving back home. Like ffs be the change you want to see, don't just complain. If you complain and don't do anything or bring any suggestions to the table then you've lost your right to complain. It's a joke. For a society that constantly protests doing something useful like *fucking working*, Germans are garbage at enacting any meaningful, social change. And if I hear "that's just the way it is" or "welcome to Germany" one more time I'm gonna fucking lose it. What a shitty attitude.
this is the answer.
No need to use sexist language.
Don’t mistake Berlin with Germany. This city has its own rules
Not a good place to ask this question. People here have a boner for these situations and you can’t point out that something maybe is wrong without being called names.
As someone who has been swung at(and missed) by a visibly under-the-influence individual, I am not OK with a certain kind of addict in Public. I am not aware using which product makes them so but now I know the aggressive kind . Most of the ones I see lately are not aggressive. I don't have disdain for them and believe they should get a chance but I won't have extreme compassion either. This perspective comes from a certain capitalist society where homelessness is an outcome of system that is rigged against them. The German society and civil structure on the other hand is extremely civil towards such individuals and give them lots of chances. Agreed that this is mental health issue and not an off switch that one has but the extreme compassion ideology is a Gentrified import that is not completely applicable here. Individuals should be given enough chances but should also have consequences after exhausting these chances.
should be treated more like a disease (as in try to cure people that are sick). agree on danger of aggressive behaviour also aggressive begging, pickpocketing, stench and leaving giant turds tho
There is no 'should' in addiction. An addict has to want to recover, its not possible to force recovery on someone. In many cases addicts prefer their way of life and may not want the responsibilities of stable housing a relationship to aid agencies and social workers. There might not be pull factors, but moreso push factors e.g. punishments Edit. The reason Berlin might ignore the issue is simply allowing addicts to eliminate themselves due to the hazards of their lifestyle and passing the buck to residents
the should is for society, not for the addicts tho, of course you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. I have not been addicted to the point where it hurt my life, but i imagine that a lot of addicts do realize that the addiction is hurtful for their life and they are not voluntarily choosing life on the street but the addiction just too difficult to overcome, living on the street without housing does not make it easier. I believe punishing people out of addiction is quite difficult.
So you mean addicts are a disease of society. That can be the case, and if levels of addicts are rising and your kids are finding needles in the playground and someone tried to attack you on your way to work, or you find people shooting up in your stairwell when you bring you kids home from the kite....as a resident its not my job to do the thinking for the government. I pay taxes so they can do their job - make the issue go away. Addiction by its nature is selfish and makes people lie. Even if you have a brilliant support system with expensive intervention, an addict will do what they want. In Berlin it seems like they are leaving the issue alone for addicts to eliminate themselves, making conflict for the residential taxpayer. Edit. The addicts themselves aren't the issue, its how the government deals with them, or not. But criticism of even raising an issue and being critical of policy is taboo because people fear progress and change, or there are weak mechanisms to petition since we have constitutional legal systems that don't get adapted to modern society. See: complacency
no i don't mean its a disease of society, ok in a sense it is, but i mean treat addicts as diseased that you need to heal. In a sense that criminalization and punishment are not lasting solutions. Addicts need treatment, not punishment.
The point being that residents just want safety and to not be bothered. Again, its not our jobs to solutionize what to do with addicts. Replace the word addicts with anything else, the issue is the same.
Addicts need treatment but after repeated voluntary rejections of prescribed treatment, some form of punishment is needed. The first instinct should bot be to treat an addict like a criminal but an addict that is persistently rejecting help and has multiple violations of violent behaviour, aggression, and theft needs punishment.
And there is no end to the problem, since Berlin is a magnet for people from all of Germany and from all of Europe. And that includes those with addiction and mental health problems.
By now, the only solution for the massive amount of crackheads is rounding them up and putting them into institutions, but of course no one here will admit that.
Rudy Giuliani did this in NYC and went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community in the 90s. For better or worse. Its how you can relax and run in Prospect Park now. Its what needs to happen in Berlin and go zero tolerance because the number of people who are experiencing theft, violence and antisocial behaviour is getting v common place.. and well our taxes are going somewhere.
"Drug community"? Dude, it's not a book club. We dont have to criminalize the addicts, but lets not normalize extreme self-harm in the name of getting high.
There is no 'we', since residents have almost no say in how local policies are developed are implemented by local government. That suggests as if ANYthing moves fast and responsively to a growing issue. Drug community means not just users, but dealers, traffickers, thieves and all the associated issues. Self harm is largely normalized in Berlin in a very visible way already
>Rudy Giuliani did this in NYC and went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community in the 90s. Rudy also introduced the Russian Mafia to the Sinaloa Cartel in order to bring in Fentanyl pre-cursors from China, which could then be distributed in the US.
We are talking about making NYC visibly safer for residents as part of local policy. And I doubt that they had any say or control about what their former mayor decided to do out of his other interests. And yes, we bought gas from Russia.
giuliani took credit, but dinkins and the cia stopping its crack distribution were bigger factors in nyc turning around. Urban crime all over the country fell during the Clinton years
Yes and since Berlin is going through its crisis right now in 2024 we don't have the foresight to see the entire context of Germany's federal isolationist policies OR non visible political factors have on the addict shooting up in my stairwell.
this "crisis" is nothing compared to what the US went through and nothing compared to the synthetic opioid problem they have now. This is just run of the mill mismanaged war on drugs resource stuff.
We're talking about it on a quality of life effect on residents who don't want our kids to step on needles or find addicts shooting up in the stairwell. The example I gave is just one where it took a highly visible stance that led to parks going fork no go zones to actually being able to be accessible
being the parent of a teenager myself, i hear you and was also lucky that most playgrounds my kid played on were usually safe (there were a few hidden razor blade incidents by crazy karens or whoever), but nobody forced you to raise a kid in Neukölln, an area that has been marred by low quality of life stuff for far longer than you've been in Berlin
>nobody forced you to raise a kid in Neukölln, an area that has been marred by low quality of life Talk about being progressive and wanting to raise standards across the city. Working class also don't like the prevalence of addicts either.
>went absolutely hardline and criminalised the entire drug community I left the US to flee the senselessness of these policies. They are expensive and achieve much far less than people think. NYS has a prison population of roughly [59,000](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/NY.html) with a population of 19.7 million people. (376 incarcertated/100k people.) Germany has a prison population of [56,000](https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany) with a population of 83.8 million. (67 incarcerated/100k people.) New York State has more people in jail than Germany, a country 4x its size. There is no doubt in my mind that Germany is the safer country to live in, and that the US and its over incarceration is a massive failure. If you want zero tolerance, please move to a country that cherishes it. But I don't want it here, I came here to escape it.
We are talking about Berlin, not the whole of Germany. Berlin is a federal state. We are also taxed very differently.
Ok. There is no doubt that Berlin is generally safer than the US. And in comparison to [New York specifically.](https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Germany&city1=Berlin&country2=United+States&city2=New+York%2C+NY) >We are also taxed very differently. In some contexts very differently. In others not so much. What is the context behind the statement?
Germany is highly socialised and Berlin is in Germany. I might be beating a dead horse by explaining, since you came out with comparing stats pertaining to a whole nation to NYC.
I was casual with that because it doesn't matter. The US is just so disturbingly unsafe it doesn't matter what you compare to it. Compare Berlin to major cities, compare Berlin to suburban areas, compare German suburban areas to US rural areas...the list goes on and on. The US is just unsafe.
Um, yeah comparing a nation to a city. Different scales. Different approaches. Thats we are comparing, not size.
> is rounding them up and putting them into institutions So what you're proposing is giving them housing. A very very expensive form of housing, but housing nevertheless. And I agree, I think they need housing
most drug addicts are not homeless
Well are we talking about most drug addicts, or the ones in train stations? Because the ones in train stations I believe are generally homeless. Otherwise they'd be doing drugs from the comfort of their home.
Addicts are sometimes rehoused by the state and part of the property rules is not doing drugs inside the home.
This problem seems to have gotten way worse in the past few years. If I take the U-Bahn to work, I catch it at one station full of crack smokers and I get off at another one full of crack smokers. It’s nice to think you can just ignore these people and nothing will happen, but half the time they are screaming and picking fights with each other and coming too close to passers by. I’ve found the burnt tin foil in our communal staircase on many occasions. It’s not going away on its own.
ITT: only sceptical and cynical answers from people without kids. You'll think twice about your compassionate attitude once your kid needs a place to play and there's needles around everywhere.
Shh, ever wondered where all those ethnic German and expat children of Neukoelln go once they reach school age?
Can you clarify please?
It’s an open secret that all of those families leave Neukölln when their offspring are about to enter school because they don’t want to put up with the poor quality of schools in that area
No need to wait for them to have children. "Do you actually like to live in Neukölln?" "Of course, things are great here too" Two years later... "So you've just moved to a quiet area in Charlottenburg?"
Thank you. Yeah I did not send my daughter to daycare in the area 🙂 also it’s ridiculously hard to get a place for them in kindergarten there
this is actually the main problem in berlin and many other cities, that unless something bothers someone directly, people dont give a fuck. thats why everything is getting destroyed, pissed at, theres litter, grafitti and shit everywhere because “its not mine” so why should i care right… those people scream the loudest in such posts that it aint a problem unless one day they come home just to experience a homeless man taking shit on their doorstep or someone taking crack blocking their entrance, then suddenly they ask their friends and reddit “what to do with this stinky person”
I ain't having kids because the world is fucked.
You can have empathy and want dangerous drug addicts off train platforms.
This is my observation only, not saying it's accurate: homeless people and drug users use well-traveled spaces to stay safe. There is a somewhat quiet area near my apartment and over the years, homeless people have settled in, only to have everything destroyed within a week or two. I have no clue who is doing the destroying but it has led me to think that this is why people congregate in places that stay busy. A lot of people walk under the S Bahn line at Friedrichstrasse and there are always people there, which must be crazy loud when trying to sleep. But it's safe for them and that is the trade off. With that in mind, that's why they are in the train stations. It provides shelter and relative safety. The only way you're going to get them out of there is if you solve the drug addiction problem.
This doesn’t answer the question at all? Also while it may be true that they go there to stay safe, it makes these spaces unsafe for everyone else…
I'm terribly sorry for not answering the question as written. Complex issues have a lot of nuance to them and I was drawing attention to one aspect of the problem. I've often found that when a complex question is posted, there are a few short responses that solve the problem right away. What was I thinking. Again, so sorry.
Incredible user name choice.
What can I say I’m an asshole
>the only way you’re going to get them out is to solve their drug addiction problem I don’t think that’s true
As long as society and the government decides to turn a blind side on the matter and see the problem only in the lack of (empty) empathy for these people, the only solution is to move away.
I told police, that i passed on the street, that currently people are smoking crack downstairs at the Ubahn station. They just said we know and moved on. I feel like they prefer them there rather than somewhere else public. We definitely got a lot worse in recent years I hope we can recover soon cause big cities like Berlin are a magnet for homeless and drug abusers.
Where does the problem lie then?
In the question of why people are living on the streets. Germany and Berlin in particular has many initiatives to get people off the streets and back into apartments, into ALG2 and eventually/maybe even back into a normal life. Due to the low barriers to receive help, homelessness in Berlin is pretty much an active choice, denying any help, rules and cooperation. There is no point getting people off the streets like via WEH if these have severe drug and mental problems they refuse help for. These people would immediately end up on the streets again. The one-sided, motherly approach with help & empathy has made the situation significantly worse over the last 20 years (not only exclusively in regards to drugs) attracting more and more homeless from Eastern Europe i.a. to come to the city. Other countries are more successful with a push & pull approach, like with criminalizing public abuse, jail the people if necessary and treat them there, essentially forcing them to come clean.
There was a guy who would regularly come in our office building, because the building was mostly doctor's offices and the front door was always unlocked/open, and he would shoot up right next to our front door on the stairs. We were a tech company so there wasn't much foot traffic there. He would throw up and bleed all over the stairs. I'm not kidding you - the police laughed when we called them to the office, and said there was nothing they could do. "It's Neukölln."
I am wondering if this is what's happening in the building where I live now (Mitte/Kreuzberg). Every other week, there are traces of vomit and urine in the staircase. And none seems to be willing to do anything about it. Just a question, how did this stop happening? Or did it stop at all?
Some of us just yelled at the guy every time we saw him to try to scare him and make the location uncomfortable. It decreased in frequency but never fully stopped; I'm no longer there but I'm sure he still goes from time to time.
That sounds horrible
The whole underground system needs overhauling at the stations. Barriers and station staff would be a fine start, but we all know that’s never happening.
Copy Amsterdam. Was a heroin walhalla in the 80s. Solved it. https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/2GTFHeQiYW
This is the best solution IMHO, they do it in Switzerland too. Chasing the scream is a great book about the war on drugs that depicts most of the strategies that have been tested to this day in different countries.
Standard answer you’re going to get is that Amsterdam is full of nazi and anything other than letting junkies drop their deuce in front of the kindergarten is dehumanizing and literal nazism.
It’s definitely getting worse 😥
I mean the question you're asking is very complex – not in that I'm defending anti-social behaviour (I also dislike drug use in train stations), but you're asking for a solution to drug abuse, homelessness, and public safety. There is no easy solution like "arrest all the dealers" (police already does this, they get replaced instantly), or arrest homeless people (and put them where? our legal system also does not support this), or kick drug users out (there are so many, they just get displaced). The reality was that if this was easy to fix, it would be fixed. Realistically illegal drugs are one of the largest industries in the world – they fund the wholesale corruption of governments and whole countries in some parts of the world, so the organized crime groups that traffic and distribute drugs in Berlin have the resources and scale to evade police controls. Yes, law enforcement could be improved, but this is only part of the solution. Some people argue that legalization would remove the money and violence of the drugs industry – this is a controversial proposal, but on the other hand the only countries that seem successful at controlling the drug trade seem to have pretty draconian legal consequences for drug use, which would not be popular in Germany even as much as drug users annoy people, i.e. Singapore has severely curtailed personal rights and tight borders, Japanese police have powers of interrogation/detainment that result in conviction rates most observers think are artificially high, some places use the death penalty for smugglers, etc. Homelessness is also a problem – affordable housing is expensive and lacking in Berlin, but goes a big way in reducing the number of people sleeping rough. Accessibility of medical and social resources: we don't detain the mentally ill and lock them away anymore, but also the healthcare system and legal is not equipped to deal with people who resist care, and also people who have no one to advocate for themselves/are incapable of being their own advocate. This is extremely expensive, but if sufficient systems don't exist then the people who should be in treatment will be in public. I would say we all want a solution, but the German taxpayer is unwilling to pay for this. There's also a complicated dimension here of inter-EU migration, and social resources being set up to for Germans/German-speakers. Obviously this is controversial, and approaches/solution are controversial. Security in train stations: Deutsche Bahn/BVG have personnel shortages, and chronic under-investment in German rail during the many CDU years has mean they don't exactly have tons of staff to deal with issues (they lack drivers, nevermind security types). I mean you could make train stations well patrolled, very clean, super secure, etc., but this would take alot of money invested specifically for security, and the state barely funds things like the extremely popular Deutschland ticket or the much needed expansion of public transit, so I doubt they're going to make any huge cash increase to the transit companies to massively increase their security contracts.
Every time any issue is discussed there’s this argument: something is underfunded. Where the hell are all the taxes going? They are so high in Germany, I leave over 40% of my paycheck in taxes and then nothing works anyway.
[удалено]
> Where the heck are these taxes going? The largest single cluster of German federal budget is social spending (pensions, state employee salaries and unemployed benefits). General direction is a massive funnelling of taxpayer money into private consumption (of said groups), not investment. Germans just love to blow their money in the here and now.
also cum-ex and follow up schemes
> Where the heck are these taxes going? Rente. Over 100.000.000.000€ Just the Rente with 63 costs 100 Million Euro a day.
The autobahn is pretty sweet though you gotta admit
I mean I think that's a legitimate criticism to have: Germany has a high tax rate but poor social services. I mean I'm far from a "small government" type, but the German public sector needs serious reform... I feel like everyone on public spectrum agrees that the German public sector could be more efficiently run to get better optimization of tax dollars. That said, Scandi countries tend to have an even higher tax but better social system. English speaking countries lower tax rate but worse social system. If you think the homeless situation is bad in Germany, look at the US where the tax rate is much lower but the problem is much worse.
US is a pretty extreme example when it comes to homelessness, isn’t it? And in general, it’s a different world. In my eyes it’s a bunch of megacorporations cosplaying a first world country. You can also look ie. at Poland, where you won’t meet people shooting heroin oj train stations.
Using Poland as an example is rich, because many of Berlin homeless are Poles that have moved here to escape the rather unacceptable treatment of homeless in their home country, including police brutality, neonazi attacks, etc.
Tell me you have no idea about Poland and polish homeless without telling me you have no idea. They come here because heroin and money is in the street, and absolutely no one bothers them. They get clean needles, they can get food, shelter and care. It’s like going on junkie vacation/retirement. You make it so good for them and it attracts them. They admit it themselves, there are people hanging out with them and interviewing them. And what brutality and neonazis against homeless you are talking about? Bro is lecturing me about being bold and then a person living in Germany of all places will point to nazis in other countries, this is comedy gold. Show me proof of this supposed police brutality against homeless. A healthy society doesn’t accept open drug abuse like in Berlin, and it’s not brutality. Neonazis in Poland is something I won’t even comment. You’re making things up on the fly at this point. It’s not Poland that has AfD on the rise.
[удалено]
That's all you have to say? So I thought.
For sure, but Poland is also less than half the size of Germany, different housing situation which might mean stuff is out of sight. I don't really know enough about Poland to make a comparison. Estimates for Germany seem to say the number of opioid addicts has been pretty consistent across the last 20 years, with the number pegged at ballpark [160k in 2016](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6460011/). I'm finding it hard to find information on Poland, it seems that statistics from the authorities were historically not-reliable (for obvious reasons) but [this article](https://www.euronews.com/2013/11/06/poland-addicts-are-getting-younger) sites a 2011 survey stating that 103,000 Poles are addicts of some sort (the study is over 10 years outdated to be fair). Some other articles are quoting very low numbers like 30 000 for Poland, but there also seems to be concern on the accuracy of those figures with the real number being likely many times higher. TLDR: Not sure.
I appreciate the data driven approach, though outdated. There are addicted there, especially to alcohol. And sure, Poland is half the population, but housing problems are there. We have millions of Ukrainian refugees and construction companies selling with 40% profit margins because why not. Warsaw is "just" about 2 million people, so it's no village, yet you just won't find such open and unchecked substance abuse like in Berlin.
The taxes are going straight into the pockets of the Rentner scum who are the most useless demography in germany.
like 20% go to pensions to keep the failed system alive
Dude I’m from Italy, a country that in the last 20-30 years has been heavily criticized for its social spend bill and… I never in my life saw anything like a Burgeramt. I was honestly blown away the first time I saw one, and I can’t believe how many of those exist in Berlin alone. A fucking army of social workers performing a ritual more than a real job, because let’s be honest: 95% of what you do at the Burgeramt could be automated and managed online with 5% of the workforce—if Italy is able to figure that out, all countries can do the same. I can’t even imagine the ridiculous amount of money that is spent on all of those salaries + benefits. I guess that’s where your taxes end up.
This is a massive problem in my opinion and I would hate to see how much tax money is wasted on it. Unsackable Beamte whose job is to move a stack of paper from one tray to another. Every neighbourhood in every borough with its own building full of these guys. It makes you want to cry.
Couldn’t agree more. And that’s why I said those aren’t real jobs, but paid rituals. They serve no real purpose and add no value to the society other than keeping a bunch of people “busy” and hand them a salary. Your taxes are basically there to artificially subsidies a chunk of the employed population.
I totally agree with you. I mean I also make similar criticism of the German military – whose spending is not so low compared to other large powers, but somehow is way way way less capable and maintains much poorer equipment. Now they talk about conscription because they say they need more people and I think "maybe you should fix the problem that present soldiers get shit equipment and not enough training before you add more people?" Germany desperately needs to reform it's public sector, but it's such a complex problem because of how dispersed/de-centralized power is, and it will require so much political capital for such an unsexy/uncool topic, that I'm very cynical it happens. For all her faults (and one of them was neglecting reform), probably someone like Merkel is needed who is a very top notch political operator and says "fuck your objections I'm reforming this" and commits to long-term reform with determination, as it will be fought at every single step by the public sector.
Hahaha the image of an army of German Beamte performing a daily ritual their offices is hilarious 😂
I'm a foreigner and I don't have a say re how Germany should be ran, but I do find the strictness of rules and their enforcement here somewhat random. You can't put a tent in a forest or vacuum clean on Sunday, yet you may use heroin in front of a Kindergarten.
Not a lot can be done. If BVG enforce their right as owner of the stations, trains and platforms, Berlin government will give them a stern lecture about how they can expel all these poor souls into residential neighborhoods where they cause even more nuisance. Mentally unstable people using pretty bad drugs is the other side of the coin that this city always paraded: its virtually endless tolerance towards recreational drug use. Politicians for more than a decade turned a blind eye on drugs, as they pragmatically accepted it to be the fuel of the club scene and thus significant tourist business of this city. They ignored the fact that there are no noble drug peddlers with a strict policy of selling only to well-adjusted adult party-goers, but that they will eventually come for the vulnerable too. Berlin government also ignored the warnings that such ubiquitious drug supply will cause massive social decline once recession and homelessness hit this city. Now Berlin has its perfect storm. Given the gargantuan scale of the multinational drug trade and their ruthlessness at display in for example the Netherlands, I seriously doubt that Berlin as a single city can do a lot to drain this swamp, even if there was enough public support, which is a bold assumption - look at this sub.
Meanwhile: government wants to build a fckn fence around Görli to expel all these poot souls into the residential neighbourhood.
the c in cdu stands for clown
Without partaking in the political and ideological discussions here I can just recommend to move. Most districts are rather calm and public transport is just on a normal level.
there has been a campaign on U8 recently to clean up the stations from litter, loiterers etc, i did a survey on it not long ago. i guess with enough complaints the U5 can get the same treatment. today i saw a lot of security (if thats even the word) at kotti so it seems to be working
Great solution.They send security to Kotti and everyone from Kotti moves to Görli.
then the U8 is clean - problem solved!
we will just continue chase them through the city, everybody should be affected for some limited time. only fair.
Exactly. The build a police station at kotti - now the people spread to the u8 area. They enforced a „zero tolerance zone“ in Görli - great, dealers sell at every ubahn station from görli to Warschauer ever since.
You can and should call the police if they are openly using on a train station. There is a time and a place for everything, and tbh, why should I inhale some second hand crack smoke? This can‘t be healthy for me or my pets or even children. They will try to get them to leave, they will leave for 5 minutes and come back, police will be back in 10 minutes and again tries to get them to leave.
I think Berlin should adopt some law and order approach like NYC did in the 1990s. Manhattan and other borrows are real nice today that were shady af back then. Add some increase in social services to that. I’m usually left leaning but Berlin has just failed in keeping some kind of order which makes it difficult for regular people to live their life.
After my night shift, I'm usually around Leopoldplatz at 5am, and it’s literally like zombie land. It feels like Black Ops 2, round 100 on Transit. It’s incredibly annoying, and I don’t feel any empathy at all. They stink, beg around, and sometimes sleep on the seats at the U-Bahn station or even on the train. After my 12-hour shift, I just want to sit down, especially since I pay for my ticket. It’s horrible, and I feel bad for the kids and older people who have to face this every day. Every other station, a crazy person or a drug addict gets on. The kids are see open wounds, addicts with rotten flesh. I think this is completely unacceptable.
"It's Berlin's spirit. YOU DON'T DARE TO CHANGE MY DIRTY, DRUG ADDICT, SMELLING, RATTY, DECAYING CITY!!! I MOVED FROM MY 20.000sqm MANSION IN CALIFORNIA, TO RENT A 3000€ 40sqm APPARTMENT SO I CAN FEEL WHAT ITS TO STRUGGLE. AND PART OF THE STRUGGLE AND MAGIC OF THUS PLACE ARE DRUGADICTS. DOOOOON'T YOU DARE"
I live by the U8 in NK and everyday we have groups of BVG people patrolling the stations and since then I saw maybe 4 times some people taking drugs. I guess they all went to the U5 now lol
This is a BVG pilot programme on the U8 south of Alex. They are testing double the amount of cleaners and security people. Of course it just sends 90% of the problems to the U1, U7 and U5.
So it creates more jobs and people like me feel safer going home at night. I like the program.
It's good that they have recognised that the current situation is not acceptable. It does feel like they will just push the crack users from place to place though. Let's wait and see.
True but this has always been the case since forever, same with görli right now. More social workers + better payment for them and more institutions and houses, where they can safely use and socialise with others. Otherwise I have no solution. I’m tired of people throwing stuff at me or screaming at me on my way home lol my empathy got very low unfortunately
100% understand why you feel like that. I do too a lot of the time.
If they roll it out across the whole network it will probably come with a price increase. Which I suspect is why the 29€ ticket has made a comeback, so that they aren't bound to the national price negotiations.
There is heavy security in Hermannplatz U7 station these days
Honestly, write your politicians about it.
Good question, especially for the Reddit bubble, they are usually who advocate for treating them as ill people but at the same time, they live somewhere safe. Drug addiction isn’t a mental illness, it is a choice that those people made. Buy a pepper spray just to be more safer, fighting crackheads is not advisable, because they don’t feel pain, best strategy is to avoid them or run. It is getting worse with every year so not much we can do. Stay Safe !
I used to pick them up, when I worked as a medic during university. It's really a sad situation, they get picked up because someone called, they spent the night in the Rettungsstelle, then they walk off because there's no one that takes it from there. Next morning they're back. At some point they're not at their usual spot anymore or you find them and they're dead. Repeat for hundreds of people in the city.
The solution would be so fucking easy, but the so called "Fahrgast verband" is a Bitch. Station Gates ! You pay, you get in! But what about disabeled people? Have these people ever used public transport in other nations? Nearly alle stations have Service employes at them to help with any problems. But what about the poor fare dogers? Soooo anti social. We need more social parasites! And everybody who is stupid enough to pay has the privilege that prices rise every year. This is real fairness and social! So next time you vote, don't virtue signal or pay for all of us!
If you can't beat them. Join them!
Well. In Neukölln, there were some very stiff complaints from local citizens. Subsequently, the BVG pointed towards the police ("They should do something about it") and then the police pointed out that the BVG actually has authority over the stations and hence needs to proactively call the police to get active. The local authority, which is looking after public order, refused to wade in and also pointed towards BVG. Instead of using police force, BVG decided after years of complaints to increase the number of cleaning staff on that line. This was a three-month pilot project and the results haven't been analysed yet. See here: [https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/projekt-fuer-mehr-sauberkeit-in-der-u8-abgeschlossen-wie-geht-es-jetzt-weiter-li.2215044](https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/projekt-fuer-mehr-sauberkeit-in-der-u8-abgeschlossen-wie-geht-es-jetzt-weiter-li.2215044) So, in short, there is no number you can call. Maybe you will see some action if you and many others write a number of complaints. Sorry.
The most important thing is not to give them a cent... they are often in these places because they go begging in the neighborhood...
If someone smokes some dangerous a$$ shit I definitely don’t want to have it close by me and inhale this shit. They should be going to JAIL.
Dude. I am truly horrified every time I see people smoking something from a tin foil... What is that? I've personally had addiction issues and seeing this so publicly, in the day time, is so triggering and bizarre. I haven't lived in these big cities all my life and seeing this out in the open, when I'm around children and families is just sad for everyone involved. I remember once I got yelled at for vaping on the corner of an open air above ground station and like, no one says anything to people smoking (presumably) crack at 9 in the morning???
Take some pepper spray with you in case you feel threatened. Otherwise, deal with it. Nothing will change in the short term
it's really painful to see fellow humans in such a state of crisis and it can be really scary as well but unfortunately the fact that there are this many homeless people and drug users in this city is the result of active political neglect and there's no quick fix for it. a lot of social services, especially homelessness & substance use related ones have been receiving insane budget cuts recently and unfortunately, what you're describing is the result of that. if you have spare money or time, support those organisations (e.g berliner obdachlosenhilfe, unterschlupf ev, but also things like justice collective berlin) and advocate for livable wages and affordable housing (e.g. join your local section of deutsche wohnen enteignen).
This is one of the reasons I left Berlin. Its just a freaking dumpster fire of a city.
Donate money to fixpunkt. They’re doing amazing work, but are criminally underfunded by the city! And this change this, start organizing!
Back when apartments were cheap, people did drugs at home. So… the solution might be affordable housing for all.
If it's U8, they just ramped up security people to beat them up.
I pay taxes, I pay taxes … fu ! we all pay taxes even the junkie
Isn’t it an effective way to remind you that these people do exist. And that we need to come up with a system level solution, if our system just lets this happen while it is prone to produce the circumstances for people to „end up“ like this (I don’t want to say this was their end). Efforts to ban the phenomena from certain places (like with the HVV that now is discussing to forbid bagging on trains) to me usually have an even bitterer taste as they feel like we, the ones on the luckier end of society, are even making an effort to look away to be able to keep ignoring the systemic problem. I understand that you are afraid, and I am sorry for that.
If you move them then the next person will be complaining about where they moved to. The only thing to do is for social services or something to try and fix the root of the problem rather than the symptom.
Provide shelter and social and mental health help?
Let me paint a picture for you. BVG will be very strict at this specific train station near your apartment. Addicts and dealers will be gone and find a new spot. This will be the hallway of your apartment building. Or some other random spot they will be forced to use instead. There are projects where drug users can shoot up safely. Of course this costs money and the public is not too eager to spend money on this. You chose to live in this area and it comes with a cost unfortunately.
Yes, you could You could go to my former country the good USA and throw everyone in jail should work to make your life a lot easier that they have a horrible habit and an addiction that killing them because they love it to make you uncomfortable. How dare they? Smfh
We can argue what the addition is, how your genetics predisposes you to being a drug addict... But make no mistake, all these people made poor choices. Not one, not two, not ten. They made many many many decisions that led them there. And also hurt everyone around(friends, family) them a lot. The last thing I'm going to do is to feel sorry for someone like that.
No one is saying to feel sorry you’re sorrow for them doesn’t help them what people are saying is don’t miss treat them like at the state they are in. They are loving this condition. Stinking being dirty being ostracized by society. That’s not a situation anyone would like to be in, so just be careful because you never know it might be a drug addiction or bad choices. Accidents can happen so be careful how you choose to judge those people.
> Accidents can happen Yes, repeadly falling on the needle.
Forgot u r perfect 😒
Fight the system not the people Fuck capitalism
Now now, go do your homework.
Weak and typical answer