Cold Relief 2025: Over 1,150 places for homeless people in Berlin!

Cold Relief 2025: Over 1,150 places for homeless people in Berlin!

The 2025/2026 cold relief season began in Berlin on October 1, 2025, which is intended to offer homeless people unbureaucratic overnight accommodation during the cold months. A total of 720 emergency overnight places are available this season, which will increase to 995 places from November 1st and up to 1,150 places in December. The plan is for the number of places to be reduced to 1,060 by the end of April 2026, with four further properties also being examined to provide an additional 100 places. This emerges from a communication from the Senate Department for Social Affairs, which was published by berlin.de.

Social Senator Cansel Kiziltepe emphasizes that cold relief can only be successfully implemented through the cooperation of many actors - including numerous church communities, associations and initiatives. She emphasizes the importance of support from owners to provide suitable premises for cold relief, as finding properties in Berlin remains difficult.

Extensive support framework

Berliner Kühlhilfe was launched in 1989 and has since established itself as a central contact point for homeless people. In addition to emergency overnight stays, night cafés, soup kitchens and meeting points are offered. These offers are used anonymously, which is of great importance for many of those affected. The financing of cold relief consists of grants from the state, funds from the League of Welfare Associations and private donations, according to berlin.de.

To coordinate the cold relief in Berlin, a cold help telephone is used, which records and controls the occupancy and utilization of the sleeping places in the emergency overnight stays and night cafes on a daily basis. In addition, those affected and interested can access information about the offers via the cooling aid website and a multilingual cold aid guide.

Data protection and website

Particular attention is also paid to data protection. On the Kühlhilfe website, personal data is processed in accordance with the Church Act on Data Protection of the Evangelical Churches in Germany. Information about the collection and processing of data is clearly presented in the privacy policy. In addition to information provided by users, for example via a contact form, automated technical data is also collected. This ensures that the data is treated confidentially and only passed on to external bodies if necessary, which is explained on kaeltehilfe-berlin.de.

With the start of the 2025/2026 cold weather relief season, Berlin is showing that it is important to the city community to offer help to homeless people in the cold season and thus send a sign of solidarity. The continuous development and adaptation of the cooling aid to meet needs illustrates the city administration's responsibility and scope for action. In 2022, a “cold aid summit” took place for the first time, the aim of which is to further optimize cold aid and design it in line with needs.