A German woman is set to be evicted from the home where she raised her children on order for the local council to turn her block of flats into a refugee shelter.

Bettina Halbey received a letter earlier this month, telling her that she has to move out of her home-of-16-years in Nieheim, west Germany.

The 51-year-old nurse has been told that she has until May next year to vacate her flat, as Germany struggles to find housing for the thousands of refugees and migrants arriving in the country every week.

Eviction: Bettina Halbey, 51, has been told that she has until May next year to move out of her flat in Nieheim, west Germany as the building is being turned into a refugee shelter

'I was completely taken aback,' Ms Halbey, a mother-of-two, told Die Welt newspaper, according to The Telegraph. 'I find it impossible to describe how the city has treated me.'

'I've muddled through sorrow and distress, and then I get this notice. It was like a kick in the teeth.'

The council has justified the eviction by saying that it is a 'free' solution to the influx of refugees in the town.

'A new residential unit for 30 refugees in Nieheim would cost €30,000 (£22,000). This solution will cost me nothing,' Rainer Vidal, the mayor of Nieheim, told Die Welt, adding that the three refugee centres in Nieheim are already full

Ms Halbey's eviction hit the headlines in Germany after she wrote about her situation in a Facebook post which has been shared more than 200,000 times.

Crisis: Around 450,000 refugees have arrived in Germany since the start of the year, including 37,000 in the first eight days of September

Temporary solutions: Refugees walk in front of tents at a temporary shelter for asylum seekers in Giessen, western Germany, as local authorities struggle to find housing for the new arrivals

It is not yet known if the local council has a legal right to evict Ms Halbey as private tenants are strongly protected within German law and can only be evicted if they break their contract.

This follows a damning report on conditions in asylum centres across Germany, as the country struggles to cope with the migration crisis in Europe.

Makeshift centres in Germany have seen men, women and children having to sleep next to each other in tents, halls and corridors. Showers and toilets are often not separated by gender, and some do not even have a curtain for privacy.

In the case highlighted yesterday, around 5,000 asylum seekers have been crammed into old US military bases in Giessen, western Germany. A letter addressed to the Minister of Integration and Social Affairs in the state of Hesse, where the centre is based, from four women’s organisations described a ‘culture of rape and violence’.

The letter, written on August 18, stated: ‘It is a fact that women and children are unprotected. This situation is opportune to those men who already regard women as their inferior and treat unaccompanied women as “fair game”.

'As a consequence, there are reports of numerous rapes, sexual assaults and increasingly of forced prostitution. These are not isolated incidents.’

The warnings came after German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month announced there was ‘no limit’ to the numbers of migrants her country would take.