Action Alliance against Housing Shortage and Urban Degradation, Newsletter 159
“Rich people are looking for a home” – Satirical demo through Marienburg
On Saturday, 21.10. at 11.11 a.m. the group “Recht auf Stadt” together with the “Pappnasen rotschwarz” march through Marienburg and protest against housing shortage and housing speculation. The “Action Alliance against Housing Shortage and Urban Destruction” and “Wohnen wagen” will be there.
Here, the hottest villas stand empty because the owners prefer to speculate or fight over their inheritance rather than rent. Whoever knows Monopoly knows that whoever owns Parkstrasse has already won!
So we know what’s what, on August 20 we explored our beautiful Cologne collection of villas in the Marienburg district by bike. Here is the report:
https://www.rechtaufstadt.koeln/recherche-zur-reichendemo/
“Every rent increase is a de facto wage cut”.
De Lapuente: Dear Ms. Lay, is the package of measures after the so-called housing summit a double whammy? Or are you disappointed?
Lay: For tenants it was a single disappointment, because for them the housing summit brought nothing. Tenant protection wasn’t even on the agenda, and in general the traffic lights haven’t done anything about the extreme rent increases that large and small cities in the Federal Republic are experiencing. Also the promised new housing non-profit, with which according to Viennese model non-profit housing enterprises are to be relieved and promoted, instead of, as so far most pompous housing companies, is still waiting. There was also nothing new in social housing construction. […]
De Lapuente: In Frankfurt – as in other large cities – new neighborhoods are being built where normal workers can never, ever afford the rent. Isn’t there a danger that the billions invested then will create living space that will again only be traded as value property and kept vacant?
Lay: Yes, exactly. What is not needed are expensive new apartments that normal earners can’t afford. But that’s exactly what the federal government is now promoting with a new special tax write-off for the construction of apartments – without social standards. Instead of subsidizing the construction of any kind of housing – the construction of luxury housing for the rich – affordable housing construction should be promoted. This requires the New Housing Community Benefit: permanently affordable housing, i.e. housing for the common good. […]
De Lapuente: Poverty and land is growing, homelessness seems to be increasing. Isn’t an elementary component of a housing market regulation to also make a progressive wage policy?
Lay: Every rent increase is a de facto wage cut. What’s worse, at the moment all prices are rising sharply in all areas. If wages do not rise to the same extent as inflation and rent increases combined, then those in work will lose out on their standard of living. In many sectors, however, there is not even full compensation for inflation. And so fewer and fewer people can afford to live. At the same time, the wealth of many company bosses is growing immeasurably and is hardly taxed at all. Therefore yes: Tax the rich more, wages up, rents down. https://overton-magazin.de/hintergrund/politik/jede-mieterhoehung-ist-eine-faktische-lohnkuerzung/
Federal conference 2023 of the BAG homeless assistance registered association.
Sticking to the goal despite times of crisis
Overcoming homelessness by 2030 – challenges and opportunities.
Challenges and opportunities
The crisis phenomena of recent years are having an impact and threaten to turn the 2020s into a crisis decade for our society. Climate crisis, pandemic, war, energy crisis, inflation and migration simultaneously demand diverse, sometimes contradictory responses; they go hand in hand with challenges that a large part of the population in the Federal Republic has never had to face before.
People who are already socially marginalized are particularly affected by these existential threats. Affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce. Price increases in many areas are leading to indebtedness, especially among low-income households, which means that they are increasingly at risk of losing their homes.
It is a positive sign that the federal government has set itself the ambitious goal of overcoming homelessness by 2030 with a National Action Plan. This plan, which takes up a long-standing demand of the BAG W, frames the Federal Conference 2023. The implementation requires the cooperation of all relevant actors at the level of the federal government, the states and municipalities, the housing industry, emergency housing assistance as well as the expertise of people with experience of housing need and homelessness.
How this can succeed will be discussed in the individual events. These will address the consequences of the crises for people in housing need and homelessness as well as current developments in the field of emergency housing assistance. The focus is on the need for action to create and secure affordable housing and on prevention. The results of the statistics on homeless people housed are discussed in terms of their consequences for the assistance system, e.g. with regard to the urgent reform of regulatory housing and law enforcement for people without a German passport.
The challenges in health care, in the protection of particularly vulnerable groups from violence and discrimination, in integration into the labor market and in the application of the relevant social laws remain relevant, as does the participation of people with experience of housing need and homelessness. It is also required in digitalization, which will be discussed with its opportunities and exclusion risks at the federal conference. Along the topics, innovative approaches, methods and good practice examples will be presented and the exchange with neighboring fields of help will be sought.
https://www.bagw.de/fileadmin/bagw/media/Doc/TGD/TGD_23_BuTa_Tagungsprogramm_8-10.11.2023.pdf
To read: Lumpenproletariat
“Until today, moral devaluations of certain groups form a means of social disciplining. Such a demarcation of the deviant, the undisciplined, and the unwilling to perform and work is constitutively part of modern societies.” (Christopher Wimmer)
Lumpenproletariat
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat
Michael Schwartz, “Proletarians” and “Lumpen”. Socialist Origins of Eugenic Thought. Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1994
https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1994_4_2_schwartz.pdf
Christopher Wimmer: Lumpenproletariat. The underclasses between defamation and revolutionary agency. Stuttgart 2021
https://www.rosalux.de/news/id/45399/wimmer-lumpenproletariat-stuttgart-2021
and in conversation at 99:1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7vppKXN5I
Programs, reports, news
Many renters and homeowners are in for an unpleasant wake-up call: Their cash-strapped municipalities are raising property taxes.
https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/plusminus/grundsteuer-schiesst-in-die-hoehe/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL3BsdXNtaW51cy8wNGRhODlmYS1lYTllLTRhMTItOGMxOC0xYTM4OGJiZjE5Njc
Tenants can stay: Arcadia Estates has again lost a case in the Berlin District Court to evict former tenants from Habersaathstraße 40-48.
https://taz.de/Spekulativer-Leerstand-in-Berlin/!5962529/
Ebertplatz in Cologne: 16-year-old steals backpack from sleeping homeless man
https://www.report-k.de/ebertplatz-koeln-16-jaehriger-stiehlt-rucksack-von-schlafendem-wohnungslosen/
Lokalzeit Köln: More and more mentally ill among the homeless
https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/lokalzeit-aus-koeln/lokalzeit-aus-koeln-oder-10-10-2023/wdr-koeln/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLXNvcGhvcmEtMGI3ZjJkM2ItNjc4ZC00ODI4LWFmNTAtZGM1MGMxNWNiMTQz
Job opportunities in Düsseldorf
https://www.viernull.de/wirtschaft-und-wohnen/leere-wohnungen-in-duesseldorf/
Self-help for the homeless
Heribert Prantl in the street papers
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/meinung/biss-strassenzeitung-obdachlosigkeit-armut-1.6272990?reduced=true
Cologne at Expo Real in Munich: Deutz port marketing begins
https://www.report-k.de/koeln-auf-der-expo-real-in-muenchen-vermarktung-des-deutzer-hafens-startet/
Is Evergrande the crutch that will burst China’s real estate bubble?
China Chinese authorities are cracking down on the country’s second-largest real estate company: But can it stop the collapse of Evergrande? https://www.freitag.de/autoren/the-guardian/evergrande-die-abbrissbirne-die-die-chinesische-immobilienblase-platzen-laesst
How artificial intelligence is being used to predict homelessness in Los Angeles
https://www.trendingtopics.eu/wie-in-los-angeles-ki-genutzt-wird-um-obdachlosigeit-vorherzusagen/
LEG wants to raise rents “as much as possible under regulations”
Rents fall in Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/leg-will-mieten-so-stark-wie-regulatorisch-moeglich-steigern-19223891.html
NRW tenants’ association advises LEG tenants to file objections
https://www.report-k.de/mieterbund-nrw-raet-mietern-von-leg-zu-einspruechen/
Federal Housing First association:
Good news from LWL Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. If a lease is granted to those who receive a lease through #housingfirst, there is financial support. This example should set a precedent, and then finding housing for the homeless will be less difficult.
https://www.vermieter-ratgeber.de/fachmagazin/fachartikel/housing-first-infos-fuer-investoren.html
Berlin: housing company Heimstaden turns the rent screw – and talks about “individual cases,” tenant association about greed for profit
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/460630.ware-wohnraum-gelber-brief-vom-immohai.html
Dates
14/10/2023, from 12:00 pm, 24 years Wagenplatz “Who owns the world”. Krefelder Strasse
17.10.2023, 7 p.m., book launch “Trapped and Homeless,” Karl Rahner Academy https://weissmann-verlag.de/
18.10.2023, 5 pm, Visit to the Gerling district
https://www.hda-koeln.de/kalender/230818_architektouren/
18.10. 2023, 20:00, V City Hall Urban Policy Forum on the topic “Housing cooperatives”. Registration at Gruene-Fraktion@stadt-koeln.de
19.10.2023, 11:55 a.m., “For a social NRW” – rally from the Landtag https://www.freiewohlfahrtspflege-nrw.de/initiativen/kampagne-nrw-bleib-sozial/einfuehrung
19.10.2023, 7:00 pm, Zurich and its cooperative tradition u. Gemeinwohlorientierte Bodenordnung. https://www.hda-koeln.de/kalender/231019_msz/
23.09.2023, 17 – 19 h, Familiarization with the Petershof public housing project, Lövenicher Weg 9-11, https://petershof.org/
21.10.2023, 11:11,. Rich people looking for a house. Satirical demo on empty villas in Marienburg, together with Pappnasen rotschwarz.
29.10.2023, 15:00, Opening of the exhibition DRAUSSENSEITER, Alfred-Schütte-Allee 4
01 – 10.11.2023 Prison Days: homelessness/prison/homelessness https://www.aktionstage-gefaengnis.de/bundesweite-aktionen/aktionstage-2023/
26.10.2023, 15:30 Council
16.11.2023, 15:30 Social Commission
05.12.2023, 19:00, Werner Rügemer: Who owns my apartment. Friedensbildungswerk
For a city without homelessness
For a city without evictions
For a city without drug-related deaths
For a city without violence against women and children
For a city without deportations
For a city without poverty
October 14, 2023.
Klaus Jünschke and Rainer Kippe
https://wohnungsnot.koeln
PS
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Translated with DeepL
