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Less social housing, higher rents: the number of homeless people grows. Your misery too. It is now more common for families with children. What is politics doing about it?
By Corinna Emundts, tagesschau.de
It should be more than a gesture: In the midst of the Corona crisis, a new humanity blossomed when friendly hoteliers opened their doors to the homeless so they could move into a well-kept room and have their own bed and shower. Such examples existed across the country to offer the homeless a haven from infection, often paid for by municipalities, sometimes with private donations.
But in fact, the already dire situation of the homeless has become even more miserable as a result of the pandemic, social associations such as the Diakonie complain. Because the low-threshold deals, such as food and clothing expenses with many older volunteers in the age-related risk group, but also health care for older doctors who work voluntarily during retirement were reduced or reduced. In winter, many people with multi-bed rooms in emergency shelters will not be able to be fully occupied due to distance rules.
Corona aid only met a lucky few, and only briefly
And: Hotels and hostels that were opened for particularly vulnerable homeless people, often with ill health, found only a lucky few. In Berlin, for example, around 300 more rooms were temporarily built: but this January alone, almost 2,000 people living on the street were found in Berlin, through volunteer counters during the “Night of Solidarity”. The number of unreported cases is much higher. In addition, there are 34,051 homeless people in social accommodation in Berlin, some 4,000 more than in 2016.
“This temporary relief presumably won’t last,” says Werena Rosenke of the Federal Association for Homeless Assistance (BAG W). tagesschau.de. Rather, it points out that the number of people seeking accommodation without a permanent address has risen steadily in recent years. For Germany, the latest estimates assume around 678,000 people nationwide, roughly the same as the population of the metropolis of Frankfurt am Main. Five years earlier, BAG W’s estimate was 335,000 homeless.
Home loss often occurs at the end of a chain of unfavorable living conditions – over-indebtedness, job loss and illness are common causes. They go hand in hand with increased rents that are no longer affordable and subsequent eviction. Affordable living space is less and less in cities. “The growing number of homeless people is the result of a failed housing policy,” criticized Caren Lay, vice-parliamentary group for the Left Party in the Bundestag and spokesman for housing policy. tagesschau.de.
The federal government should allow better protection of tenants against dismissal and initiate a system change in assisting the homeless, which some cities are already practicing: “Housing first” is the name of the model in which you look first to people an apartment, and then a job, not the other way around, so that the new beginning in a more orderly life can be successful.
Social housing contraction: Seehofer sees countries as an obligation
Since state-subsidized apartments may enter the normal rental market after a while, the total number of social housing fell to 1.219 million nationwide in 2019, despite the new buildings. In 2006, when responsibility for social housing was transferred from the federal government to the states, there were almost double that, about 2.1 million. The federal minister for construction, Horst Seehofer (CSU), considers that the federal states have an obligation.
On the other hand, the BAG W has long been calling for a national action plan to prevent the issue from shifting to federal states and municipalities. Because homeless people are not only becoming more, but also younger, more international and the number of homeless women is increasing, so far they have been a minority in this group. There are also more affected families with children, almost half of whom are single mothers.
Refugees with recognized asylum status and who are entitled to housing provision are often unable to find an apartment; they are often discriminated against because of their origin as tenants in the largely private-sector controlled rental market. Unemployed immigrant EU citizens are sometimes not entitled to German social benefits; as homeless people, they are sometimes even shunned into emergency shelters. Except in the dead of winter, when those people threaten to freeze to death in the street.
What is politics doing?
What is politics doing? The federal government crouches. Although there is a housing offensive and the goal of “affordable rents” in the coalition agreement, the homeless play no role in the cabinet as a group that needs to be strengthened. Baukindergeld was introduced, but at the same time, apparently, not enough efforts are being made to ensure that poor families with children are not fired from their increasingly expensive apartments or even evicted without finding affordable replacements.
The Greens in the Bundestag are again petitioning the federal government next week in a petition for the sustainability goal of being no longer destitute by 2030. Not even Berlin Social Senator Elke Breitenbach, who belongs to the Left Party, dares to pass this as a goal when asked tagesschau.de. And this despite the fact that currently the city has more than tripled its spending compared to 2015 to 8.6 million euros to reduce the number of homeless people and “improve” their care.
“The federal government has declared that it is not responsible”
Across Germany, a confusing and uncoordinated patchwork of measures remains, depending on the financial strength of municipalities. Also, there are no really reliable figures at the federal level or for most federal states; This has long been criticized by those responsible for social policy.
After many years of debate, the Bundestag managed to resolve at least one uniform homeless statistic in early 2020. “Until now, the federal government had always resisted and declared that it was not responsible,” criticizes the labor market spokesman of the Green parliamentary group, Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn.
Even one member of the government faction fears wasting time and says: “It could be a structural change if the federal government provides uniform framework conditions for funding measures,” said Frank Heinrich, a member of the CDU of the Bundestag, who has been involved for a long time in homeless work.
