Berlin boarding house accused of €1M fraud in homeless housing scheme
BERLIN – Berlin police have launched an investigation into the operators of a boarding house in Charlottenburg accused of defrauding the city's job centers out of over one million euros. The owners allegedly falsely claimed for months to be housing homeless individuals in their facility, according to a report by Tagesspiegel.
The job centers paid €660,000 directly to the boarding house, while the remaining funds were disbursed to the registered homeless individuals as welfare benefits.
Homeless People Were Not Staying at the Boarding House
The facility was inspected twice last year. "During both checks, some of the individuals for whom the job centers had provided housing payments were not found on the premises," a spokesperson for Berlin's job centers told the newspaper.
In April 2025, 14 out of 22 so-called "benefit households" were missing from the accommodation. A follow-up inspection in September 2025 found that 15 of 21 groups were unaccounted for.
District Authorities Ignored Warnings
The job centers alerted local district offices on November 6, 2025. "The Berlin job centers requested that no further individuals be assigned to the facility," the spokesperson explained. Despite this, 26 more people were referred to the boarding house by mid-April.
As a result, the Federal Employment Agency and the Social Welfare Administration decided that Berlin's job centers would no longer cover the costs of accommodation at the Charlottenburg boarding house—including outstanding invoices.
However, homeless individuals may still be placed there, though the districts will now have to bear the costs themselves.
Job Centers Cover Housing and Welfare Payments
In Berlin, homeless individuals are typically housed in shelters by social welfare offices. Due to limited capacity, districts also rely on hotels and boarding houses. Since most homeless people receive welfare, the job centers cover their accommodation costs, negotiating a daily rate with the facilities.
This is not an isolated case of fraudulent claims for public funds. In 2025, a controversial boarding house in Berlin's Schöneberg district—referred to in media reports as a "Roma accommodation"—sparked nationwide outrage (Junge Freiheit reported). During a police raid, only 19 of the 70 registered foreign citizens receiving welfare were found on-site. "If it turns out that people are registered here but not actually staying, that constitutes welfare fraud," a job center employee stated at the time.
The raid followed suspicions that the residents—reportedly Roma—were falsely declaring "mini-jobs" in Germany to qualify for supplementary welfare payments while having their rent covered by taxpayers. By the end of 2025, the facility was temporarily shut down due to reports of unsanitary conditions and a suspected pest infestation.
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