Germany, like many Western nations, is facing a housing crisis partly driven by mass immigration. As housing and rent prices soar, German taxpayers are being forced to pay hundreds of millions every year to house migrants across the country. In expensive cities such as Hamburg, the bills are shockingly high.
In March alone, the Hamburg government spent €14.2 million on hotel rooms involving 6,500 accommodation spots, which amounts to an average of €2,154 per accommodation — a surprisingly high sum for just one month.
The amount of money spent came to light to light after the AfD parliamentary group in Hamburg’s parliament submitted a request for the information.
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“The costs include accommodation and catering costs as well as room cleaning, equipment with bed linen and towels, their cleaning, internet, and waste disposal,” read the Senate answer, which was made available to German newspaper Junge Freiheit.
In fact, the city of Hamburg is actually buying up entire hotels to house migrants even as Germans struggle to find affordable housing in the city. In February of this year, the city bought the Select Hotel Hamburg Nord to obtain its 122 rooms for approximately 250 migrants. It was the third time Hamburg had bought an entire hotel for the purpose of housing migrants. Last year, the city announced it planned to house 100 migrants inside a retirement home.
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The hotels are seen as only a temporary solution, and the cost of housing all migrants in Hamburg is far higher than €14.2 million every month, as this bill does not include housing for migrants in asylum shelters and more long-term residences.
The city needs an “admission stop and at the same time a deportation offensive,” demanded AfD parliamentary group deputy leader Alexander Wolf. The red-green senate has lost “all inhibitions in terms of asylum costs,” the faction criticized.
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Hamburg is one of the cities seeing the fastest pace of demographic change involving the displacement of ethnic Germans. The majority of school-aged children now have migration backgrounds.
Now, polling shows a majority of Germans want to pause migrant arrivals. As Remix News reported earlier, 12 out of Germany’s 16 federal states last year announced they were blocking further refugee intakes, arguing they have no capacity left to absorb any more newcomers.
In 2022, the country took in over 1.2 million people, which has overwhelmed the German social welfare system.