The Winter House in the Carducci street in Bolzano was open from 10 December 2019 to 30 April 2020.

The Winter House was a project of the civil society in South Tyrol. Almost 100 committed volunteers centred around entrepreneur Heiner Oberrauch no longer wanted to stand by and accept political inaction: After all, more than 100 people were homeless in the provincial capital and winter was imminent. At the beginning of December 2019, they quickly and unbureaucratically organised a shelter for more than 50 homeless men, women and families in Bolzano. The volunteers ran the Winter house for 143 days without public funding. The coronavirus pandemic has further complicated the situation. The emergency shelter became an all-day accommodation centre for homeless persons. Respect and solidarity characterised our interactions with one another.

The book and video about the Winter House

In order not to let this civil-courage exemplary project be forgotten, four volunteers from the Winterhaus (Caroline von Hohenbühel, Maria Lobis, Marion Maier and Rudolf Nocker) have collected their experiences and turned them into a book. The book also includes interviews with the Winter House residents, key data on homelessness in South Tyrol and suggestions for addressing this ongoing emergency. The stories in the winter book show what is possible when people overcome their fear and simply take action. The book was available in a print run of 1,000 copies in South Tyrolean world shops and at zebra. vendors, who collected half of the sales price. The remaining proceeds from the book sale went to our Dorea housing project, which supports homeless women and women in precarious situations by providing them with temporary accommodation.

Have a look …

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