Action Alliance against Housing Shortage and Urban Degradation, Newsletter 131
The Wienands family and the minimum standards in housing for the homeless
“We wanted justice and got the rule of law” (Bärbel Bohley).
Contrary to the usual case law throughout Germany, the Cologne Administrative Court had ruled in January that the city of Cologne had to provide a homeless mother with five children with an apartment near her previous place of residence. The accommodation in a homeless hotel is not humane. The search for a suitable apartment should not fail because of money.
The Higher Administrative Court of Münster overturned this decision and ruled in favor of the city, which wanted to accommodate the Wienands family in Ehrenfeld in a homeless shelter. Cabaret artist Jürgen Becker had declared at the protest rally against the eviction of the family in front of the city hall that it was not at all possible to accommodate a family with five small children in a shelter together with alcoholics and drug addicts.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster stands for the previous tradition, which has led to the fact that the life expectancy of homeless people is 30 years lower than the national average. This jurisprudence sees “homeless care” with eyes firmly closed as only a temporary emergency solution, even though many people have to spend years in these “emergency solutions.” Homeless people must accept extensive curtailment of their housing rights from this view, which sees nothing. This attitude arose in the post-war period, when Germany was still in ruins. Today Germany belongs to the richest countries of the world and it is to be cleared at the time after the long ago removed ruins also the perception of homeless persons as humans of inferior right.
Attorney Karl-Heinz Ruder points out in its public statements again and again that the defaults of the courts are always only minimum requirements, which can be outbid, improved and extended by the municipalities converted. Social department head Rau, on the other hand, has orated that the lowering of minimum standards is under discussion in the German Association of Cities. In Cologne one can expect that apparently hardly.
On 23.2.2023 the meeting of the AK homelessness of the communities of interest of the city center with Sozialamtsleiterin Katja Robinson took place to the “Cologne concept against housing and homelessness” in the “Veedelszimmer Eigelstein”. The minutes read:
“For the drinking scene from EU countries, it is not the social welfare office that is responsible, but the police, the foreigners’ office and/or the public order service. There one would have to go also in the direction of “Giuliani policy”, in order to avoid pull effects.”
If you google Giuliani and homeless people, you will come across such reports:
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/die-zahl-der-obdachlosen-in-new-york-steigt-unaufhaltsam-nun-will-buergermeister-giuliani-nur-noch-jenen-hilfe-gewaehren-die-dafuer-arbeiten-saubere-strassen-fuer-manhattan-li.41403
You can’t do that with us.
Press comment:
City of Cologne may house homeless in hotels
https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rheinland/stadt-koeln-darf-obdachlose-in-hotels-unterbringen-100.html
Court considers accommodation of Cologne mother with five children in homeless hotel reasonable
https://www.ksta.de/koeln/beschluss-gericht-haelt-unterbringung-von-koelner-mutter-mit-fuenf-kindern-in-obdachlosenhotel-fuer-zumutbar-540289
After eviction in Cologne
Court rules on accommodation for homeless family
https://www.express.de/koeln/unterbringung-von-obdachloser-familie-in-koeln-urteil-gefaellt-1-540392
Wienands family is not an isolated case
Dr. Benjamin Limbach, the Minister of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia, informed the state parliament in response to a small question from SPD members Lena Teschlade and Jochen Ott on Sept. 19, 2022, that 1,728 apartments were evicted in Cologne in 2020, and 1589 in 2021.
You can’t do that with us.
Press commentary:
City of Cologne may house homeless in hotels
https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rheinland/stadt-koeln-darf-obdachlose-in-hotels-unterbringen-100.html
Court considers accommodation of Cologne mother with five children in homeless hotel reasonable
https://www.ksta.de/koeln/beschluss-gericht-haelt-unterbringung-von-koelner-mutter-mit-fuenf-kindern-in-obdachlosenhotel-fuer-zumutbar-540289
After eviction in Cologne
Court rules on accommodation for homeless family
https://www.express.de/koeln/unterbringung-von-obdachloser-familie-in-koeln-urteil-gefaellt-1-540392
Wienands family is not an isolated case
Dr. Benjamin Limbach, the Minister of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia, informed the state parliament in response to a small question from SPD members Lena Teschlade and Jochen Ott on Sept. 19, 2022, that 1,728 apartments were evicted in Cologne in 2020, and 1589 in 2021.
With us, this is not to be done.
Press comments:
City of Cologne may house homeless in hotels
https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rheinland/stadt-koeln-darf-obdachlose-in-hotels-unterbringen-100.html
Court considers accommodation of Cologne mother with five children in homeless hotel reasonable
https://www.ksta.de/koeln/beschluss-gericht-haelt-unterbringung-von-koelner-mutter-mit-fuenf-kindern-in-obdachlosenhotel-fuer-zumutbar-540289
After eviction in Cologne
Court rules on accommodation for homeless family
https://www.express.de/koeln/unterbringung-von-obdachloser-familie-in-koeln-urteil-gefaellt-1-540392
Wienands family is not an isolated case
Dr. Benjamin Limbach, the Minister of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia, told the state parliament in response to a small question from SPD members Lena Teschlade and Jochen Ott on Sept. 19, 2022, that 1,728 apartments were evicted in Cologne in 2020, and 1589 in 2021.
Squatting
Socialist self-help occupies apartment building Cologne
This house has been empty for over 20 years,” says Kippe. “Yet Article 14 of our Basic Law states that property is an obligation.” More and more people
would live on the street. “The average life expectancy of citizens is over 70 years, that of the homeless is 48,” Kippe said. “For the city not to eliminate homelessness is manslaughter in office by omission.” https://www.ksta.de/koeln/lindenthal/lindenthal-veedel/koeln-russisches-geisterhaus-sozialistische-selbsthilfe-besetzt-mehrfamilienhaus-539400
Speech by Kalle Gerigk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11ZZPUHcDmU
Houses of the Russian Federation in Cologne: rallies and occupation.
https://www.report-k.de/haeuser-der-russischen-foederation-in-koeln-kundgebungen-und-besetzung/
Frank Überall: Russian house in Cologne occupied: Apartments stand empty for a long time
https://www.kivvon.com/de/ueberall-dabei/russen-haus-in-koeln-besetzt-wohnungen-stehen-lange-leer
Rent rebels on the street
https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1172006.mieterproteste-housing-action-days-mietrebellen-auf-der-strasse.html
Why a charitable investor wants to buy the “Russenhäuser
https://www.t-online.de/region/koeln/id_100151090/koelner-russenhaeuser-kauft-nun-ein-investor-die-leerstehenden-gebaeude-.html
A word on Easter: We are the absolute majority!
Maybe a miracle will happen, and the majorities, the non-capitalists, the self-employed and the working, the despondent and the powerless, the service providers and the unemployed, the pensioners and those with names that sound strange to Rudi and Waltraud, the old and the young will stop hating each other for their opinions. They no longer read texts in which one group is insulted, they begin to talk to each other, in the lines in front of the rental properties, at work or looking for work – and become solidaristic. Faster than the surveillance that is currently being expanded at full speed to prevent coming uprisings, many cells of discontent could form, of civil disobedience to surrender to the fate that the system has foreseen for the masses. They could camp in government buildings and in front of them, occupy the houses and roast tofu in the corridors of the investment companies, bi his few authoritative laws would be passed, transferring tenements into cooperatives, prohibiting speculation with one of the fundamental rights, that of decent housing (Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights), returning the cities and villages to those who live in them.
(Sibylle Berg in Die Zeit, March 16, 2023, p. 47)
Friedrich Küppersbusch on the housing question posed to him by taz
Taz: Construction Minister Klara Geywitz advises people to move to the countryside because housing is scarce in cities. Is this measure more effective than a rent cap or the socialization of large housing corporations?
Friedrich Küppersbusch: It will be funny when villagers call the distant supermarket – and the call lands at the home office of the other villager next door. Then a truck with a can of yogurt sets off for the countryside in the city. They’ll probably bring a family doctor and a kindergarten right along with them. Rural exodus is an option for high-income earners who have already spoiled the price of living in the surrounding areas of the big cities. An alliance of trade unions, social associations and tenants’ associations is therefore calling for a 50-billion program for social housing, in other words a modest half-wit. Because while the traffic light thoroughly tears its goal – 100,000 reduced-price dwellings per year – statistically every 19 minutes a social dwelling disappears. Presumably to the countryside. The natural-religious belief in the market seems ineradicable. So please: If you believe in the market, you believe in competition. For example, state-owned ones.
https://taz.de/Halbe-China-Woche-volle-Verantwortung/!5922001/
Broadcasts, reports, news
Frontal Spezial: Expensive housing. March 28, 2023, 9 p.m.
phoenix plus: “At the bottom – ways out of poverty”.
A feature on PHOENIX in which Hans Mörtter talks to people affected by poverty and/or homelessness. From minute 10:05 with us at Vringstreff, from minute 18:00 with a tenant from our Housing First Cologne project. THANKS to Mona Heck and Inge Swolek from PHOENIX for their report full of respect and at eye level!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7_xbzVCSFQ
The plate looks good
Learning from the GDR means building affordable housing
https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1171992.stadtentwicklung-die-platte-sieht-gut-aus.html
Committees deal with amended housing subsidy 2023
The City Council memo will be considered by the Housing Subcommittee on April 18, the Social Services, Seniors and Senior Citizens Committee on April 20, the Property Committee on April 24, the City Development Committee on May 4 and the Building Committee on May 8.
https://www.report-k.de/ausschuesse-befassen-sich-mit-geaenderter-wohnraumfoerderung-2023/
Artist Rosemarie Trockel sells her villa in Cologne-Hahnwald for 6.5 million https://www.express.de/koeln/koeln-villa-von-kuenstlerin-rosemarie-trockel-auf-immowelt-540039
In the USA, one in 17 lives in a trailer. In Berlin, a convicted fraudster has turned the housing shortage into a business model, renting out containers and old caravans to people looking for accommodation.
https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/illegaler-trailerpark-verurteilter-betrueger-macht-die-berliner-wohnungsnot-zu-geschaeftsmodell_id_189215245.html
WG rooms for female students hardly still affordable
https://www.rundschau-online.de/koeln/koeln-liegt-im-staedtevergleich-auf-platz-5-wg-zimmer-in-nrw-werden-teurer-541388
The construction industry is the first sector to fall victim to monetary policy
Last week, the Federal Statistical Office reported that (price-adjusted) new orders in the main construction sector in January 2023 were a whopping 21 percent below their year-earlier level (Figure 1).
Hardest hit is residential construction (Figure 3), which our politicians say Germany needs so badly: Compared with March last year, this sector recorded a drop in orders of one third.
https://www.relevante-oekonomik.com/2023/03/29/als-erste-branche-faellt-die-bauwirtschaft-der-geldpolitik-zum-opfer/
Dates
03.04.2023, 19 o’clock, right on city, open meeting, old fire station
13.04.2023, 9:30 a.m., Rally against forced eviction, Seidenstr.4, 51063 Cologne, Germany
15.04. 11 o’clock, Rally against vacancy
20.04.2023, 15:30 o’clock, social committee
21.04.2023. 13 – 15 Clock Digital Workshop: care for people from the 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
May 16, 2023, 3:30 p.m., Council.
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 31, 2023
Klaus Jünschke and Rainer Kippe
https://wohnungsnot.koeln
PS
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Intended purpose: Aktionsbündnis
Translated with DeepL
