Why is being evicted seem so serious?
Are there no homeless around Germany?
I know people that lose their homes in the states and ya, it sucks, but it's not the end of the world. I guess they would normally have a car they could sleep in if needed between jobs.
Here in Germany, once you lose your home/apartment (and also happen to lose your job), and have no place to stay, it's pretty much impossible to get properly employed ever again (except perhaps in unqualified jobs). People even have to circumscribe the term and say things like "without permanent residence" instead of "homeless" when applying for a job since that sounds nicer. Once you had one unqualified job, it's difficult to return to your field of expertise since that looks bad on your resume. The reason for that is still prejudice against homeless people. We do have very few homeless people. Even if you have an address at a shelter for the homeless, this may look bad to a potential employer. Even people who were in jail just once often seem to have trouble getting proper employment again, since there's also a lot of prejudice against criminals, even if they fully served their jail time and are officially reintegratable into society. That's why getting homeless or jailed often
scares people here.
People in Germany are less self-sufficient than people in the States, because they come to rely on services provided by the government. For instance, if you get unemployed, you simply register with the work agency and ask for unemployment payments. When you're sick, you're almost always health insured. When you retire, you always get retirement payments. When you're married you know you'll get tax cuts. When you have children, you know you'll get supported in various ways, and so on. However, if you become truly homeless, suddenly there MAY be a homeless shelter in your area, you MAY be eligible for social support, you MIGHT NOT be health insured (which means no-one might be able to treat you if you get sick), that's why it's so scary. If there's no homeless shelter, there's often the only solution to either live on the streets or become a criminal and make sure you end up in jail, b/c you'll receive
guaranteed support there ... (again, you'd have food, a roof above your head, health care, work and education programmes, etc.)
p.s.:
Many criminals, when they get released from jail, commit further crimes
just to get back into jail, because they get cared for there. Because, nothing's worse than getting out of jail and having no place to go to.
When my dad was in a mental institution for dementia, there was a guy there who had checked himself into the institution b/c he had no-one that cared for him. Another such place are hospitals, many people make sure they can stay at or return to hospitals to make sure there's someone who cares for them.
Even if our social system seems advanced, it is still lacking in many areas, and people that would need support sometimes don't get it. However, for the truly homeless, there's often the chance to get assigned a social worker or case advisor, and get some kind of unemployment payments and health care.
Another problem is, that many people often simply don't know about all the things they are legally entitled to.
