Just a quick reminder: The hundreds of drug addicts, homeless people, and sex workers in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel – dismissively labeled „Zombieland“ by some tabloids – are real people with real problems. They need genuine and concrete help. Stating the obvious? If only that were the case.

For years, political debate over the drug crisis in Germany’s financial capital has been dominated by arguments focused on cosmetic location concerns. The victims of this daily social and medical catastrophe are mostly seen as a dark stain on the bright image of Germany’s most important financial hub.

Just over a week ago, Frankfurt’s city executive (Magistrat) voted by majority to establish a new addiction support center, aimed primarily at crack addicts – a group whose numbers have surged dramatically in recent times. The planned site is on Niddastraße, not far from the central train station and right next to the existing drug scene.

The political dispute over this nationally unique pilot project now threatens to blow apart the four-party coalition governing Frankfurt’s city executive. While the SPD, Greens, and Volt voted in favour of the centre’s location, the liberal FDP is fiercely opposed – and has repeatedly threatened, following the example of its federal party, to quit the coalition.

The arguments follow familiar lines: „Even if the help centre for crack addicts worked, the question would remain: how do we get the rest of the Bahnhofsviertel free from, let’s say, these problem cases?“, said Frankfurt’s new FDP leader Frank Maiwald, as quoted recently by the FAZ. „The Bahnhofsviertel should be Frankfurt’s showcase.“ Language can be so revealing.

Critics of this unprecedented addiction support project seem to take its failure for granted. Instead of developing alternative solutions, political players have spent the aftermath of the location decision arguing over coalition math, voting strategies, broken promises, and participatory procedures. Whether the crack centre will actually come up for a vote in the city council this week remains unclear.

There is, at least, consensus on one point: conditions in the Bahnhofsviertel are intolerable. For residents and businesses, tourists and passersby – but above all, for the people directly affected by drug misery. And no one seriously believes that relocating the drug scene and addiction services to another site would meet with less resistance than the current plan for Niddastraße.

The only way to ease the crisis is to offer those truly affected – the addicts – a real path out of addiction and homelessness. The strategy of „out of sight, out of mind“ has never solved a problem.