SocietyGermany
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SocietyGermanyhttps://p.dw.com/p/5EgHs
Berlin has one of Germany’s largest unhoused populations. According to estimates, more than 50,000 people in the city lack permanent housing, and around 6,000 of them live permanently on the streets. The reasons for homelessness vary, from poverty, misfortune, and eviction, to debt, addiction, and criminality. Some try to make ends meet by selling what are known as street newspapers. Others have been living in the same public spaces for years, and are well-known in their neighborhoods, though not always well-liked. This documentary follows Bülent, Daniel and Manni, three men who grew up in Berlin and now find themselves without a home. Six days a week, Bülent sells newspapers outside a shopping center in the city’s Moabit district. Everything he owns fits into a rucksack. Because he has no valid papers, he’s not entitled to social benefits, so he lives on donations and the money he makes from newspaper sales. Manni, meanwhile, has spent years living in a tent pitched at Helmholtzplatz, a public square in the Prenzlauer Berg district. The park is his home, though city officials repeatedly force him from his camp. Daniel was forcibly evicted from his apartment six years ago. Today, he lives in a subsidized temporary apartment and is politically active in the fight against homelessness. The documentary follows these three men through their daily lives, capturing encounters with people who offer help and with those who turn a blind eye. It tells the stories of three Berliners whose lives have taken very different paths, but who have not given up on their desire for a better future.
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