• blitz
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    5 years ago

    Homelessness in Germany - especially in Berlin it’s a huge issue

    • diorama
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      5 years ago

      At least Berlin has an expropriation law. Other cities in Germany haven’t.

      • blitz
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        5 years ago

        I’m not sure what you are referring to. (1) I think in Germany the state can expropriate legal persons in general provided the state compensates the owners. This is not specific to Berlin (2) There is a large social movement, especially in Berlin, for expropriating big real estate corporations like ‘Deutsche Wohnen’ but this is not law yet. (3) The Berlin City Government has passed a law for stopping rent hikes (‘Mietpreisbremse’, literal translation: rent brake) which freezes rents in its first stage (now) and also makes certain over average rents illegal in a second stage (planned in six months or so). I wrote this from memory - so I might be wrong in some details. Let me know if you want me to back up some point with links :)

        • diorama
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          5 years ago

          Ok I knew it wrongly, thanks for clarification. I made some graphics for #mietenwahnsinn yet never gone deeply in the discussion. My intuition is it is a huge issue in Berlin AND the city has a far more advanced legal framework to fight gentrification and homelessness wrt. other cities in Germany and in Europe.

          • blitz
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            5 years ago

            I agree. The new rent control law is pretty cool and I hope it prevails against the court cases that are currently fought by greedy home owners. However, I feel the issue of homelessness is only tackled implicitly by this. It is never treated like the scandal that it really is… There was a ‘homelessness census’ at the beginning of the year and around 2000 homeless people were counted in one night, 800 of which were apparently sleeping on the street: https://www.berlin.de/nacht-der-solidaritaet/ergebnisse/ This is far too many but at the same time during the lockdown they could be easily housed in empty hotels I imagine.