Sports halls as refugee housing Crunch time for sports clubs
Bonn · A growing number of sports facilities in Bonn are being converted into refugee shelters. The City Sports Association will hold an extraordinary session tonight to address concerns.
It could be turbulent, and it could get loud and emotional this evening when Bonn sports clubs meet for an extraordinary session of the City Sports Association (SSB). The meeting is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the Club house of the Bonn THV. As more sports halls are being taken over by the city and converted to refugee centers, some sports clubs are fearing for their existence. What will happen to their clubs if more sports halls become refugee shelters? Will members leave the clubs? Can clubs guarantee they will be able to operate next season? Do sports clubs still have a function in this city?
At the end of February, the Duisdorf Hall on Schmittsraße will be converted to a refugee center and a week later the Josef-Strunck Hall in Endenich will follow suit. Two weeks later, the Wasserland Hall will be taken over for use of refugee housing and three weeks later the sports hall of the High School in Beuel. On top of that, many sports halls will be busy this summer hosting competitions: Sport park north, Pennenfeld and Hardtberg hall.
President of the State sports association of North Rhine Westphalia (LSB), Walter Schneeloch is worried about the extreme situation and has written to the Mayor of Bonn, Ashok Sridharan to express his concerns. He wrote that he is dismayed over the abrupt change of course from city administration, with their assault-like announcement that they will take over 15 sports halls for refugee housing. According to Georg Westermann of LSB, of around 7,000 sports halls in North Rhine Westphalia (NRW), 400 were being occupied as of October, 2015. Cologne, Essen and Bochum all have their problems, but the situation is not as extreme as in Bonn.
Westermann credited NRW clubs with being very flexible and showing a great deal of solidarity, but acknowledged the difficulties of moving a sports team to another club or area. Meanwhile, the German Olympic sports association in Frankfurt says many communities are finding good solutions but there are some situations that are troubling. In Hamburg and Saarland, no sports halls are being used; in Hessen, all the sports halls that were being used for refugees will soon be available for sports again. Bremen, on the other hand is using many sports halls to house refugees. In all of Germany, currently 1,000 sports hall facilities have been made unavailable for sports. This affects 4,000 different sports clubs.
3,872 refugees are currently being housed in Bonn. Refugees shelters have been converted from empty buildings, vacation and private apartments, temporary housing containers, hotels and a growing number of sports facilities. 600 refugees live in 6 sports halls at this time, with plans to convert 15 more sports halls to refugee centers. With a population of around 320,000, Bonn has about 80,000 members in its sports clubs, 28,000 of them youth. The question is – where will they all go?
(Orig. text: Gert auf der Heide)
