Action alliance against housing shortage and urban destruction, Newsletter 179
Protest against vacancy of GAG apartments
02.03.2024, 11 a.m., Ricarda-Huch-Str.31 in front of the GAG Service Center
Doors barricaded
Demolition in Cologne’s Veedel district is delayed – resistance is growing
Dozens of apartments on Elias-Gut-Strasse in the Stammheim district of Cologne have already been cleared. The doors are secured with locks and wooden panels block access. Empty flower boxes still hang on the balconies. The non-profit municipal housing association GAG wants to demolish the block of flats and build a new one here. But that will take some time. That is why committed citizens are calling for the vacant apartments to be used in the meantime to house the homeless. This weekend, they demonstrated again in front of the GAG “customer center” in Stammheim. Rainer Kippe from “Sozialistische Selbsthilfe Mülheim” (SSM) explains the situation in a short interview with KiVVON chief reporter Frank Überall.
Housing estates consisting of detached houses have been criticized by Günther Moewes:
“Four-storey perimeter block developments consume on average only 36.6% of the heating energy per apartment of a detached single-family house of the same size. This can be reduced to up to 22% by glazing the courtyard in winter.”
https://humane-wirtschaft.de/2018_01/HW_2018_01_S04-09.pdf
The German Tenants’ Association in its tenants’ magazine 1/2024:
Several thousand people are living on the streets in Germany. The help offered by cities and social organizations bridges the worst times, but cannot solve the basic problem
The Cologne Tenants’ Association on GAG’s rent increases:
State of NRW increases rents in social housing by over 10 percent
Misappropriation of living space in Cologne 11th report (2nd half of 2023) as at 31.12.2023
Violence by young people against homeless people
The adult world must take responsibility for what children and young people do. This is what is missing from the media reports on youth violence against the homeless.
Benches that you can’t lie on, a pay toilet that doesn’t accept cash and lots of fences: on the Instagram channel safeandurban, artist Martin Binder posts examples of “hostile design”. The term has prevailed over the term “defensive design” to criticize the discriminatory intention. The main aim of hostile design is to keep homeless people out of public places. https://taz.de/Obdachlosenfeindliche-Architektur/!5981637/
How poor people were persecuted by the Nazis as “asocials” and “professional criminals” is documented here:
The denial of these Nazi measures means that prejudice and discrimination continue to this day:
Profit crisis – only socialization can help
Historic crisis in the construction industry “Anyone who builds today will go bankrupt”
The Central Real Estate Committee warns of a “dramatic slump” in residential construction. The so-called real estate experts expect a shortage of 830,000 apartments in Germany in just three years.
The demands of Housing Action Days 2024 from March 27 to April 7
We demand:
– Housing and land must be a public good! An end to land speculation through the socialization of land ownership and large housing associations and massive investment by the state in social housing.
– Democratic urban planning! We need an ongoing democratic debate on urban planning and housing policy to stop speculation and gentrification and strengthen tenants’ rights.
– A radical turnaround in urban and territorial policy! For a solidary and ecological urban and spatial development!
– Alternative housing should be a right! Squatting and other occupations should not be criminalized or punished, but supported as alternative solutions for housing and collective organizing.
– Put an end to homelessness! We demand a clear plan with appropriate resources to provide people with adequate and stable housing solutions.
– An end to evictions! Relocation! Winter moratoriums on evictions should be a first step towards respecting basic human rights.
– Take back empty homes and buildings from local and central authorities and convert them into affordable social housing!
– A Europe-wide reduction in rents! The control of rents and property prices for both public and private housing.
https://housingnotprofit.org/housing-action-days-2024/#1708104900260-cf7cb7f6-dd2b
The AfD calls for urban and housing policy to tackle migrants
High-ranking AfD politicians, neo-Nazis and financially strong entrepreneurs came together in a hotel near Potsdam in November. They planned nothing less than the expulsion of millions of people from Germany.
The majority of the talks and discussions on this day will revolve around this central point, “remigration”.
On February 20, 2024, the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag submitted the motion “Learning from the Danish approach to parallel societies – initiating a strategic turnaround in urban and housing policy” in which it calls for the massive “remigration” of migrants:
“The AfD parliamentary group wants to stop unregulated mass immigration to Germany, massively promote remigration and only tolerate migrants who help to advance the common good. The latter are to be permanently obliged to work, abide by the law, obtain qualifying educational qualifications and earn their own income.” https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/103/2010372.pdf
With this latest variant of the old “foreigners out” agitation, this party is working to make migration the “mother of all problems”. Since the causes of migration can be found in social inequality and the resulting hardships and conflicts, the AfD is once again showing itself to be a reactionary defender of an order that makes a few richer and richer, and the poor richer and poorer.
Read more
Cologne’s concept for combating homelessness
https://ratsinformation.stadt-koeln.de/getfile.asp?id=977963&type=do
Broadcasts, reports, news
Cologne’s best-known vacant lot degenerates into a garbage dump
Public housing construction in NRW: 2.1 billion in funding -548 subsidized apartments in Colognehttps://www.report-k.de/oeffentlicher-wohnungsbau-in-nrw-21-milliarden-foerderung-548-gefoerderte-wohnungen-in-koeln/
Citizen’s allowance for the homeless
https://www.ka-news.de/region/karlsruhe/buergergeld-fuer-obdachlose-sie-bekommen-auch-ohne-adresse-unterstuetzung-25-2-24-art-3023062
Winter without an apartment
Out of invisibility
The exhibition “In our midst” at the Humboldt Forum sheds light on the everyday lives of homeless women in Berlin. Those affected have their say
Rent profiteering by the city for refugees:
Dates
02. 04 2024, 11 a.m., Protest against vacancies, Ricarda Huch Str.31, Stammheim
04.03.2024, 7 pm, Right to the city, open meeting at the Alte Feuerwache community center
09.03.2024, 11 a.m., Protest against vacancies, Ricarda Huch Str.31, Stammheim
09.03.2024, 3 – 6 p.m., Central event for International Women’s Day: “Strong women, strong Cologne” in the historic town hall
11.03.2024, 10 am, Protest against vacancies in front of the GAG headquarters, Straße des 17.Juni 4
12.03.2024, 7 pm, How can non-discriminatory spaces be created? https://www.hda-koeln.de/kalender/240312_hdak/
13.03.2024, 3 p.m., Uprisings, upheavals, “revolutions” in Cologne, Karl Rahner Academy
16.03.2024, Day of the open housing project
17.03.2024, Day of the open housing project
19.03.2024, 7 pm; Superblock initiatives in Cologne
21.03.2024, 3 pm, “Finally abolish homelessness” Theo-Burauen-Platz
01-07.04.2023 Housing Action Week 2024
09.04.2024, 6 – 7.30 pm: “Climate crisis/heat stress – health consequences and protection options”, with Barbara Grüne from the Cologne Health Department and Bianka Schiefer from the Cologne Environmental and Consumer Protection Office. Forum VHS in the museum
23-25.04.2024 Conference for homeless people “On the growth of street homelessness and the search for good solutions” at Maternushaus Cologne
03.05.2024, 10 am – 5 pm Practical workshop at the TH Köln: “Between empowerment, advocacy and powerlessness: Political representation of interests by social work and self-organizations of people affected by poverty”
07-09.06.2024 The 10th Right to the City Forum in Berlin
10-11.06.2024 Assisted living after release from prison. Ehrenfeld community center
11.09.2024 Day of the homeless
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
March 2, 2024
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, March 4, 2024 at 7 pm at “Recht auf Stadt Köln” in the open meeting place of the Bürgerzentrum Alte Feuerwache
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
