Action alliance against housing shortage and urban destruction, Newsletter 170
Protest against vacancies in GAG apartments and rent increases
Saturday, December 30, 2023, 11 am. Ricarda Huch Str.31
After the Express, the Rundschau and the Stadt-Anzeiger also reported fairly on our protests against the vacancy of GAG apartments and the rent increases by GAG.
We continue. The city leadership is completely unimpressed.
In the free “Express – Die Woche” advertising paper delivered to all letterboxes on December 22/23, 2023, there was an interview with Mayor Reker entitled “Must tighten belts”. The text quotes Ms. Reker verbatim: “For all of us, a turning point means that we have to tighten our belts.”
She is not asked who belongs to this “we” and who does not need to tighten their belts.
The ever-increasing social inequality is no reason to come to our senses and take up the fight against growing poverty. A year ago, the Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported that Karin Fürhaupter, chairwoman of the Cologne food bank, declared: “We have reached the end of what we can do”
Evictions are being carried out in Cologne, the number of homeless people is rising and the number of social housing units is falling. Cologne is starving, and the food bank can no longer meet demand at its more than 100 distribution points.
On March 22, 2022, anthropologist Luisa Schneider had the opportunity to speak at the specialist colloquium on the sustainable fight against homelessness organized by the Department of Social Affairs about the importance of privacy and intimacy and what their absence does to homelessness.
Why aren’t all homeless people immediately housed in lockable single rooms? It’s not just the GAG apartments that are empty, there are 88 LEG apartments empty in Birkenweg in Höhenhaus and 80 Russian Federation apartments in Friedrich-Engels-Straße. To name just a few examples. https://www.ksta.de/koeln/muelheim/hoehenhaus/leg-siedlung-koeln-hoehenhaus-weshalb-die-wohnungen-leer-stehen-700141
Are the poorest of the poor needed on the streets to demonstrate to the poor, who are supposed to tighten their belts, what will happen to them if they don’t make an effort to tighten their belts and parry?
2023 – an incomplete review
We stood in front of almost every meeting of the city council and the social committee with our demand “Finally abolish homelessness.”
We protested against the vacancy of these houses with rallies and symbolic occupations: Friedrich-Engels-Str.7, Engelbertstr.37, Glasstr.6, Neusser Str.39, Rosenstr.7-12, Lindenallee.7, 20 and 60, Tiberiusstr.6, Parkstr. 5 and 8 , Hitzeler Str.125, Kalker Hauptstr.88, Elias Gut Str.5 – 13.
On behalf of the tenants of Kornstrasse 4, we stood in front of the building against the unjustified termination for personal use.
So that the tenants of Wallstr.31 can stay in their homes, we were twice in front of the building and three times at the landlord’s Im Hasengarten.
We were against evictions at Frankenplatz 1, Seidenstr.4, Palmstr.19 and for the OMZ in Gummersbacher Straße.
Our powerlessness only proves that there are still too few of us taking to the streets for the abolition of homelessness.
We already knew it 50 years ago
Heinz Abels, Bernd Keller: Homeless people. On the social definition and situation of a marginalized social group – Opladen 1974
It is no coincidence that the theoretical and practical examination of individual problems of homelessness repeatedly leads to the cardinal question of how homelessness can be eliminated or prevented. Various proposals have been made in this regard (e.g. Adams, 1968; Deutscher Städtetag, 1968; Däumling, 1967; Heil, 1967; Iben, 1971; Albrecht, 1973). Some of the proposed formulas can be confidently described as having failed in practice or as theoretically outdated; the concept of the so-called “three-stage plan” – consisting of the “socio-pedagogical ladder” of emergency accommodation – transitional housing – normal housing – for example, does not achieve the intended goal – reintegration into middle-class society – but the exact opposite (Haag, 1971, p. 19 ff.; Iben, 1971; Albrecht, 1973, p. 48). The problem can certainly not be solved by individual or organized charity towards the homeless.
VdK social association calls for socially fair energy prices
Socially just energy prices – this is how the government agreed to introduce the climate money in the coalition agreement. However, the climate money is not included in the federal government’s current financial planning.
ATTENTION: An increased CO2 levy without climate money basically just means rising energy prices. The state must pay out the money from CO2 pricing to citizens as originally planned.
If the climate money is not introduced or is introduced too late, many people will be hit hard. We are calling for the climate money to be introduced quickly and for targeted subsidies.
Heating must not be a luxury! The government must act now! https://www.vdk.de/presse/pressemitteilung/vdk-praesidentin-heizen-darf-kein-luxus-sein/
Read more
Silvia Hofmann: Life between social work and care. Evaluation of the living situation of formerly homeless people in socially assisted housing. Dissertation Vienna 2017
Christina Salvini-Plawen, Sabrina Thomauske: Homeless people in the context of professional inpatient care in hospitals. Bachelor thesis, Cologne 2014
Britta-Marie Schenk: Free men? Constructions of masculinity among Hamburg’s homeless in the 1950s. In: Männer mit “Makel” Männlichkeiten und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in der frühen Bundesrepublik. S.62-74
Florian Buchmayr: Stigma-Management von Berliner Straßenfeger-Verkäuferinnen Eine empirische Analyse symbolischer Differenzierungen nach (Erving) Goffman und (Pierre) Bourdieu BACHELORARBEIT, Berlin 2014
The Invisible – A book about the cycle of poverty
Don Bosco Club: Emergency shelter for young adults launches fundraising campaign
Broadcasts, Reports, News
Tenants facing a horror year
Grid agency anticipates permanently high electricity prices
Standstill on construction sites
Homelessness is growing faster than its reduction
Homeless people protest against locked church entrance
Vienna: In Seestadt Aspern, concepts for the climate-friendly city of the future are being tested. Will it work?
The Grüner Hof in Cologne-Mauenheim is a place of peace and security
Common good instead of Putin. Expropriation of Classen-Kappelmann-Str.
Churches as rent sharks
Too high rents crush Cologne department stores
Dates
06.12.2023 – 02.02.2024 Exhibition “Review of IBA Vienna – How do we want to live tomorrow? Willy-Brandt-Platz 2, in the Magistrale
30.12.2023, 11 a.m., protest rally against vacancies, Ricarda-Huch-Str.31
12.01.2024, 15 – 17:30, Veedelswanderung through Mülheim. In the Otto-&-Langen-Quartier and at the Mülheim harbor we question the current development of Mülheim. https://www.hda-koeln.de/kalender/240112_stadtwanderungenkoeln/
16.01.2024, 7 p.m., Prof. Dr. Karsten Zimmermann: Urban conversion in European comparison. TH Cologne, Deutz campus, Karl Schüssler Hall
16.01.2024, 7 pm, Bernd Streitberger: Stages of the City of Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Hof
18.01.2024, 3:30 pm, Committee for Social Affairs
27.01.2024, 6 – 7:30 pm, Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Nazis. Antonite Church
29.01.2024, Film screening: ALTERLAA Forever. About the largest social housing park in Austria, called Alterlaa. Filmhaus, Maybachstr.111
31.01.2024, 7 pm, Wohnungsschlüssel statt Handschellen, reading of “Gefangen & Wohnungslos” with Dr. Nicole Bögelein, Christina-Maria Greve, Klaus Jünschke, and another former prisoner. TH Cologne, Ubierring 48, Room 201
05.02.2024, 7 pm, “M’r welle en neu Stadt baue”, Historical Archive, Eifelwall
06.02.2023, 3.30 pm, Council
7-9.06.2023 The 10th Right to the City Forum in Berlin
For a city without homelessness
For a city without forced 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
December 30, 2023
We wish all our readers a good start to the new year.
Klaus Jünschke and Rainer Kippe
PS
Appeal for donations
We need money to further improve our public relations work:
Donation account MachMit! e.V. IBAN: DE53370501981011342704
Purpose: Action alliance
To discuss further actions, we will meet on Monday, January 8, 2024 at 7 pm in the open meeting room of the Bürgerzentrum Alte Feuerwache
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
