Free Rooms: An Inside Look at Berlin's Refugee Housing Crisis

Fifty thousand refugees will have arrived in Berlin by the end of the year. That's roughly four times as many as last year. For weeks, long queues have formed in front of the initial reception center at the State Office for Health and Social Affairs; every day volunteers try to help the hundreds of newcomers seeking a temporary place to live. The hostel: What was intended as a short-term fix has degenerated into a permanent solution. Many hostel operators don't want to accommodate refugees anymore because the government vouchers are paid out too late. On the other end of the spectrum, some hostel owners have specialized in accommodating refugees, taking advantage of the government vouchers through inhuman methods - crowding numerous refugees into rooms to profit as much possible . VICE Germany followed refugees in their search for housing, speaking with volunteers, hostel operators, squatters, and Berlin politicians along the way. Using hidden cameras, they got an uncensored look into inept bureaucracy that's causing people to sit for weeks without stable accommodation, and saw how some hostels operators are earning million euros profiting from the city's refugee crisis. WATCH NEXT: Life as a Young, Indigenous, A-class Offender in Australia: http://bit.ly/1JrRrmb Click here to subscribe to VICE: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE Check out our full video catalog: http://bit.ly/VICE-Videos Videos, daily editorial and more: http://vice.com More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos Like VICE on Facebook: http://fb.com/vice Follow VICE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vice Read our Tumblr: http://vicemag.tumblr.com Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/vice Check out our Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/vicemag