Action Alliance against Housing Shortage and Urban Degradation, Newsletter 130
Housing Action Day
On March 25, 2023, initiatives against housing shortages are making their voices heard together in many cities across Europe. The demands include the abolition of homelessness, the immediate suspension of evictions and of electricity, gas and water cuts, consistent vacancy bans in cities and a nationwide rent cap.
On this occasion, we will stand in front of two vacant houses on Saturday, March 25, 2023. The Aachener Str.240-244 in Lindenthal belongs like the Friedrich-Engels-Str.7 in Sülz to the Russian Federation. Come by and be there.
https://www.housing-action-day.net/
Housing shortage in Cologne
In the council meeting on 23 March 2023 was again not the housing emergency in Cologne proclaimed.
https://ratsinformation.stadt-koeln.de/si0057.asp?__ksinr=26895
The number of homeless people in the city is increasing. There is no adequate help for the drug and alcohol addicts among them. Since Housing First is of all mouth, one knows that the minimum is lockable single rooms, still better however the own dwelling, in order to come to the peace and to be able to notice and accept assistance offers.
Homelessness can be eliminated before 2030 if the misappropriation of housing through vacancies and conversion into vacation homes is ended.
There are still over 1000 forced evictions annually – instead of suspending them and thus preventing the increase in homelessness.
In the next few years, over 6000 apartments in Cologne will fall out of the bond.
Rents are rising and rising because construction is not nearly meeting demand. People who kept and keep the city going are being forced out of the city.
In the council on Thursday Bärbel Hölzing-Clasen of the Greens explained in the debate about the school place crisis: “Cologne has grown, but the necessary school places not with. We haven’t put enough pressure on as politicians, we have to admit that.”
We don’t want to hear the same windy excuse tomorrow in the face of the housing shortage. We demand action now.
Eviction on April 13, 2023 at 10 a.m., Silk Street 4.
As we have learned, the tenant affected by the eviction is to get a GAG apartment in Buchheim on the eviction day by instruction of the city.
As soon as we know more, we will report.
Evicted Winands family in new apartment?
Homeless large family from Cologne-Porz
City of Cologne arranges apartment for single mother and her five children
https://www.ksta.de/koeln/porz/porz-veedel/koeln-porz-stadt-stellt-wohnung-fuer-obdachlose-grossfamilie-537027
German rent court day 17./18. March 2023 in Dortmund
Experts in tenancy law met under the motto “Tenancy law in times of energy crisis & climate change”. A large part of the lectures dealt with the legal and practical management of these currently central problems in relation to the rent. Of course Mr. Miethai and the rent stop hand may not be missing there.
On a demonstration we showed our dissatisfaction with Vonovia, LEG & Co.
Living is a human right and no commodity!
Therefore, the future of housing must no longer be dependent on housing corporations, but must be taken over by the public sector.
https://www.mietgerichtstag.de/
Wolfgang Borchert 1947 on the “New City
And all the locomotives go to the new city. And the new city, that is the city in which the wise men, the teachers and the ministers, do not lie, in which the poets allow themselves to be seduced by nothing but the reason of their hearts, that is the city in which mothers do not die and girls do not have syphilis, the city in which there are no workshops for prostheses and no wheelchairs, that is the city in which rain is called rain and the sun is called sun, the city where there are no cellars where pale-faced children are eaten by rats at night, and where there are no attics where fathers hang themselves because women cannot put bread on the table, that is the city where young men are not blind and not one-armed and where there are no generals, that is the new, the great city where all hear and see each other and where all understand: mon coeur, the night, your heart, the day, the day, the night, the heart. Wolfgang Borchert, “In May, in May the cuckoo cried”, 1947.
https://www.rowohlt.de/buch/wolfgang-borchert-gibt-denn-keiner-keiner-antwort-9783644000988
broadcasts, messages, news
Trial in Cologne
Public prosecutor sharply attacks Cologne building inspectorate
https://www.rundschau-online.de/koeln/koeln-innenstadt/prozess-in-koeln-staatsanwalt-greift-koelner-bauaufsicht-scharf-an-536368
Housing shortage: Association of cities and municipalities recommends moving to the countryside
“More than 1.3 million apartments are empty”: in view of exorbitant real estate prices in the cities, an association official advises a radical step. Then people could also live cheaply again.
https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/immobilien-in-deutschland-wohnungsnot-staedte-und-gemeindebund-empfiehlt-umzug-aufs-land-a-51df564a-1ed8-4a6d-bbb3-8cf5f222411c
122 major construction projects make up the list that has been before Cologne’s local politicians since October 2022. The Left Party in the Cologne City Council is now demanding that Cologne’s politicians and city administration draw consequences and cancel major construction projects, prioritize individual projects, and implement a “cultural change in the planning and realization of major construction projects.” To this end, the parliamentary group is submitting a motion to the Cologne City Council.
https://www.report-k.de/linke-zu-grossbauprojekten-der-stadt-koeln-streichen-und-priorisieren/
TEN POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT BUILDING WOODEN HOUSES
https://fair-trade-haus.de/blog/holzbau/zehn-populaere-irrtuemer-ueber-den-bau-von-holzhaeusern/
FDP drags out better tenant protection: Blockade at tenants’ expense
A bill for better tenant protection is a long time coming. It is stuck in the FDP-led Ministry of Justice.
https://taz.de/FDP-verschleppt-besseren-Mieterschutz/!5922641&s=Jasmin+Kalarickal/
Bye-bye concrete Rethinking sustainable building fundamentally
Steel and concrete are the foundations of our modern world. But this all-rounder among building materials comes at a high price, and its climate footprint is devastating. Building needs to be rethought. Traditional building materials such as wood and clay are being rediscovered as new high-tech materials thanks to consistent digitization.
https://programm.ard.de/TV/3sat/bye-bye-beton/eid_280074000884487
Dates
25.03.2023, 11 a.m., rally against vacancy, Friedrich-Engels-Str.7 and Aachener Straße 240-244
29.03.2023, 7pm, Housing and housing policy in Cologne. DGB House Cologne
21.04.2023. 13 – 15 h Digital workshop: care for people from EU foreign countries without social benefit entitlements in Germany. Registration via link
https://ssl-sug.carinet.de/slus/anmeldeseite-kagw-21-04-23-versorgung-von-menschen-aus-dem-eu-ausland-ohne-sozialleistungsansprueche-in-deutschland
For a city without homelessness
For a city without evictions
For a city without drug deaths
For a city without violence against women and children
For a city without deportations
For a city without poverty
March 25, 2023
Klaus Jünschke and Rainer Kippe
https://wohnungsnot.koeln
PS
Call for donations
To further improve our public relations we need money:
Donation account MachMit! e.V. IBAN: DE53370501981011342704
Intended purpose: Aktionsbündnis
Translated with DeepL
