Asylum concept of the city of Chemnitz
1. update of the accommodation and care concept
At its meeting today, the City Council adopted the City of Chemnitz's asylum concept as the first update of the accommodation and support concept.
The guidelines for working with refugees and asylum seekers in the city of Chemnitz and the objectives and procedures were described and defined in March 2015 with the adoption of the concept for the accommodation and care of asylum seekers in Chemnitz.
Since then, a previously unforeseeable dynamic has developed in the area of asylum, which is accompanied by new tasks and changed requirements for the City of Chemnitz, making it necessary to revise these principles and guidelines.
As the contents of the concept go beyond mere accommodation and care, it was given the title "Asylum Concept". The following significant changes and new focal points arise for the City of Chemnitz:
Accommodation
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has not yet published an official forecast of the number of asylum applications expected in Germany in 2016. The city of Chemnitz is therefore not currently planning any new shared accommodation this year. Instead, the existing facilities are to be moderately expanded as required. The aim remains to accommodate asylum seekers primarily in decentralised locations within the city.
A total of 2,715 people (asylum seekers and relatives with entitlements under other laws as well as recognised foreigners with residence permits in residential homes and in decentralised housing I) live in municipal accommodation. Of these, 347 people (12.8 %) live in shared accommodation and 2,368 people (87.2 %) in flats. As of 22 April 2016, 542 asylum seekers were newly assigned to the city of Chemnitz this year.
Integration
The integration of asylum seekers is becoming increasingly important. In addition to the establishment and operation of clearing houses for the accommodation and care of unaccompanied minors, integration counsellors were employed at various primary schools and after-school care centres last year in order to support the integration of refugee children into everyday school life. In addition, more school social workers were employed at schools with preparatory classes for foreigners, ethnic German immigrants and asylum seekers (VKA classes); from this year, this is planned for all schools with VKA classes.
The central coordination centre for voluntary work in the field of asylum (KEBA) has been set up as a contact point to improve networking between people who would like to volunteer for refugees. Anyone interested can contact Irina Hilbert, Caritasverband für Chemnitz und Umgebung e. V., Reitbahnstraße 23, 09111 Chemnitz, Tel.: 0371 83 44 56 70, Fax: 0371 83 44 56 43, e-mail: ehrenamt-asyl(at)caritas-chemnitz.de.
Other topics that have now been conceptualised are, for example, the expansion of opportunities to get to know each other in the city districts, the organisation of event-related residents' meetings and the revision of the website.
The aim of the City of Chemnitz is to dovetail the integration tasks already carried out in the individual areas even better in future and to underpin them conceptually.