“Millions of people overburdened”
Tenants’ Association and DGB are destroying the traffic light’s housing policy
December 6, 2023, 4:16 p.m
For most tenants, little has improved in the last two years of the traffic light government. They often still pay too much. There is still a lack of hundreds of thousands of affordable apartments in Germany. The interim report is correspondingly devastating for the government.
The German Tenants’ Association and the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) criticized the federal government’s housing policy at the halfway point of the legislative period as “inadequate” and warned of a worsening of the housing crisis. The two organizations in Berlin said there was a lack of more than 700,000 affordable rental apartments, many of them in social housing. Green Party leader Ricarda Lang called for relief, especially for families.
According to information from the DGB and the Tenants’ Association, the situation on the housing market has deteriorated in the past two years: in 2022 alone, rents nationwide rose by an average of four percent, reflecting the federal government’s plan to build 400,000 new apartments annually, 100,000 of which are publicly funded , has been significantly missed over the past two years.
Of the around 295,000 new apartments built in 2022, less than a third will be classic rental apartments and less than a tenth will be affordable social housing. In addition, building permits issued fell by 27.2 percent in the first half of 2023.
Massive investments required
Stefan Körzell, member of the board of the DGB, called the situation on the housing market a “socio-political scandal”. He accused the federal government of “obviously still not recognizing” the significance of the situation.
The tenants’ association and DGB are calling for massive public investment in social housing and energy-saving renovation. A rent freeze is also necessary. “In Germany, millions of tenants are overburdened with their housing costs and rents will continue to rise,” complained Lukas Siebenkotten, President of the Tenants’ Association.
Today, 3.1 million of the 21 million renter households are already paying more than 40 percent of their income for basic rent and heating costs. According to the DGB and the Tenants’ Association, 5.5 million households cannot heat adequately.
Lang wants a tenant protection offensive
She sees the balance sheet of the two organizations as a mandate to “move the federal government’s housing policy plan forward more quickly,” said Green Party leader Lang. In addition to a higher pace of social housing construction, a tenant protection offensive for affordable housing is needed. “Families in particular need to be relieved quickly.” She also reiterated her party’s demands for tightening rent controls and caps as well as limiting index rents.
With index rental agreements, the rent is linked to the consumer price index; in return, landlords waive all other adjustments. According to the DGB and the Tenants’ Association, 30 percent of newly concluded rental agreements in the six largest German cities contain indexation. Siebenkotten described index rents alongside furnished living as “the new cost traps”.
However, the actors positively assessed the implemented housing benefit reform and the “Young Living” funding program, which was launched by the government with 500 million euros.