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The army is extending the housing offer for asylum seekers until the end of 2024. It has agreed to transfer approximately 3,700 places in the army infrastructure to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) if necessary by the end of 2024.
The SEM could count on this after parliament rejected the plans of asylum minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider (59). She wanted to set up container villages to be prepared for an increase in asylum applications.
Not all accommodations are suitable
Because the Council of States stood in the way, a plan B was necessary. The cantons were asked to indicate civil protection facilities where places could be created. The goal was to have 3,000 extra beds available in case of emergency. However, just under 600 could quickly be found, as Baume-Schneider announced a month ago. Another 1,200 places were clarified.
However, many of these have now proven to be unusable. According to the SEM, civil protection facilities have been shelved or rejected, for example due to conflicts of use, lack of permits or inadequate sanitary facilities.
The federal government is looking for additional housing
Currently, according to the SEM, 710 places in civil defense facilities in the cantons of Bern, Geneva, Glarus and Zurich will be put into use between October and November. Authorities say others are still being identified. There are another 300 places on the Glaubeberg OW, where the army will hand over another building to the SEM from November until the end of April 2024 at the latest.
Thanks to the cooperation of the army and the civil defense facilities in the cantons, the SEM would still have a total of around 10,000 housing places available, and from November even around 10,700. These capacities in more than 30 federal asylum centers are currently more than 70 percent exhausted.
In order to cope with the expected increase in asylum and protection applications in the coming months and to prevent premature allocations to the cantons, the SEM will need additional reception places in the near future. In August alone, 3,000 asylum applications were registered in Switzerland, almost 40 percent more than in July. (SDA/lha)
Source:Blick
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