Short Answer The standard route into a municipal emergency shelter runs through the local social services office — but at night and in freezing weather, the emergency network ("Kältehilfe") exists precisely so that nobody needs a paper slip to sleep indoors. Municipalities carry a legal duty to shelter people against cold exposure; the daytime registration gets you a stable placement, the night shelters keep you alive until then. What Most Expats Don't Realize You lost your lease unexpectedly and showed up at a facility that only accepts placements assigned through the central social department, and the staff turned you away at the door. Nobody told you that the Kältehilfe emergency shelter a few streets over takes walk-ins all night without any documents. You spent the night in an expensive commercial train station transit hotel that cost you €180 — and in deep winter, the same information gap costs people far more than money. What To Do * Go directly to the local social office (Sozialamt) or district administration center on the morning your housing security breaks down, and ask for an official emergency accommodation voucher (Unterbringungsschein). * At night or in winter, search for "Kältehilfe" or "Notunterkunft" plus your city, or call the local emergency cold-weather bus — these services are walk-in by design, and if your life is in danger from the cold, 112 applies like any other emergency. * "Ich bin obdachlos und benötige eine Notunterkunft." (I am homeless and require an emergency shelter.) — state this absolute emergency status to any counter agent or shelter staff to trigger their statutory duty of care. The Truth Germany's welfare safety net runs on two tracks that nobody explains at the door: a bureaucratic daytime track that allocates stable beds through paperwork, and an unconditional night track built to prevent people from freezing. The system's real failure is signage — the beds exist, but the people who need them most are the least likely to know which door is unlocked.