German Woman Gets Eviction Notice to Make Room for Migrants — and She’s Not the First

A German woman is protesting the eviction notice she received informing her she has until the end of the year to vacate the government-owned apartment she rents in order to make room for migrants who have arrived seeking asylum.

“I think it’s a scandal to throw tenants out of their apartments,” Gabriele Keller, 56, told Germany's SWR television. “I can’t see the sense of it.”

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Keller has lived in the same home in the city of Eschbach for 23 years and has now hired a lawyer to fight the eviction.

Gabriele Keller says it’s a “scandal” to evict tenants from their apartments to make room for migrants. (Screenshot: YouTube)

This is the second reported case of a German citizen being evicted to make room for the newcomers.

The mayor of Eschbach, Mario Schlafke, told Germany’s Welt newspaper that the city council’s decision was not “frivolous.”

“The alternative would have been to set up beds in the gym,” the mayor said.

Local councilwoman Claudia Geiselbrecht told Badische Zeitung newspaper, “Our backs are to the wall.”

The Telegraph noted that the municipality said it had offered Keller assistance in finding a new home, but she denied the claim.

Keller’s case emerged after nurse Bettina Halbey last month was handed a letter from her landlord that she had until May 2016 to vacate the apartment in Nieheim, Germany that has been her home for 16 years.

According to news reports, she was told that she was being asked to move because building a new shelter would be too expensive for the municipality. Instead, the building will be converted for migrant housing.

Europe is facing the most challenging migrant crisis in decades, as countries scramble to cope with the influx.

German officials estimate 800,000 migrants will arrive in Germany by the end of the year.