Wednesday, March 7, 2018

The Hofheim Story

It's one of those odd immigrant stories from Germany that you'd just shake your head over.

Over in Hofheim (a smaller town in Hessen), the city runs a migration center (compound, housing, etc).  Well....for months, they've got into the habit of surveying their occupants.  These are people in the waiting status for a full-up visa.  They have a temp deal until the final review is done. 

Well....HR got around to this amusing story.

The city sees a fair number of the folks there now employed, while living in a city-provided housing deal (nothing that you'd want to brag about but more like a studio apartment situation).

The city believes that the residents who are employed....ought to be paying them some 'rent'.  Amount mentioned?  398 Euro.  I'm guessing some mathematical formula exists....square meters and some number, with heat and electricity figured in.

When this idea got mentioned....the immigrants got pretty peeved.  The mere suggestion that they needed to pay for this public housing?  Man, that got a bunch of folks upset.

The city now?  It's backed off.  To be honest, there's no national law or state law that mandates they takes some portion of the guy's salary.  Once he gets the full-up visa....most all exit quickly, then to discover that housing in the Rhein Valley region is a serious problem.  That 398 Euro number?  You won't find nothing within 20 minutes of Frankfurt for a 2-bedroom like that amount.

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