BERLIN (AP) – The coronavirus pandemic has not made life on the streets of Berlin any easier for Kaspars Breidaks.
For three months, the 43-year-old Latvian homeless shelters have faced reduced capacity so that people can be kept at a safe distance from each other. And with fewer Berliners going out, it is much more difficult to raise money by handling or collecting bottles to sell for recycling.
But on a cold winter morning this week, Breidaks found himself with a free hot meal and a place to warm up, after the German capital’s largest restaurant, the Hofbraeu Berlin – itself closed due to the coronavirus blockage – shifted gears. homeless people.
“Other homeless people at the train station told me about this place,” Breidaks said, removing a furry black hat with long earflaps as he sat on a bench in the warm, spacious beer hall near Berlin’s famous Alexanderplatz. “I came here for hot soup.”
It was a restaurant worker who volunteered at a shelter and who suggested opening the Bavarian-style shuttered beer hall – according to the famous Munich establishment of the same name – to the homeless.
It was a clear win-win proposal, said Hofbraeu manager Bjoern Schwarz. The city-funded project not only helps homeless people in troubled times, but also gives workers the necessary work – and provides the restaurant with a welcome income.
Working with the city and two welfare organizations, the restaurant quickly developed a concept to include up to 150 homeless people in two shifts every day until the end of winter, and began serving meals.
It’s only a small number compared to the 3,000 restaurant diners, mostly tourists, who would hit the establishment in good times. But the spacious halls turned out to be ideally suited to bring in the homeless and give them all enough space to prevent infections.
“Normally we would have a lot of groups here at Christmas time for Christmas parties and then we would serve pork shanks, half a duck or goose … but not at the moment,” Schwarz said. “We still deliver, but that is clearly just a drop in the bucket.”
In addition to serving food and non-alcoholic drinks and providing the warmth of the indoors, the restaurant offers its bathrooms for homeless people to wash up, and the GEBEWO and Berlin Kaeltehilfe support groups have employees on hand to provide advice and new clothing. provide, if necessary.
For its new customers, the restaurant opened a wood-decorated hall on the second floor and set up 40 long tables.
“We will offer them something different from the regular soup kitchen food – real dishes on china plates, with different sides, we will try to offer Christmas dishes with many flavors,” said Schwarz.
Breidaks came to Germany three months ago looking for work. But he says a promised job in the meat factory never materialized and he ended up on the streets of Berlin begging for the money needed to replace a stolen passport and buy a bus ticket home.
He is one of an estimated 2,000 to 12,000 people left homeless in this city of 3.6 million, even after another 34,000 were housed in community shelters, hostels and apartments by social services and private welfare groups.
“The corona pandemic has seriously worsened the situation for homeless people, they live in very precarious conditions,” said Elke Breitenbach, Berlin state senator for social affairs whose department financially supports the restaurant that has become a shelter.
“They don’t have enough to eat and when it’s cold they need a place to warm up,” added Breitenbach.
On Thursday, the first shuddering group to enter the Hofbraeu along with Breidaks was served either Thuringian-style bratwurst with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and onion sauce, or a vegetarian stew with potatoes, zucchini, peppers and carrots. For dessert there was apple strudel with vanilla sauce.
For Breidaks, that was more than he expected after spending a night in freezing temperatures huddled next to the walls of a large department store on Alexanderplatz.
“I just need hot soup,” he said. “And God willing, I’m going back home in January.”