We – homeless and homeless people, refugees and people with a migration history, employees in social associations and people involved in rental policy – are fed up with vacancies. That’s why today, on Saturday, December 18, 2021, we reoccupied many of the long vacant apartments in Habersaathstraße. Thus we have created living space, for people who need it just urgently!
Already a year ago, several apartments in Habersaathstraße 46 were occupied by homeless and homeless people. After several hours, the police brutally evicted the people back to the street before the seizure could be sufficiently checked by the district. Since then, not much has happened. The owner at the time, Andreas Pichotta, offered to make some of the vacant apartments available to an agency as cold aid. There were talks between the owner and a sponsor. The offer kept decreasing, out of 40, ten apartments remained, in the end there were no apartments at all.
For years, there was a failure to create sufficient affordable housing. Rent evictions and forced evictions supported by Red-RedGreen continue unhindered. Fewer and fewer people have the chance to find an apartment on the housing market and more and more people have no apartment of their own. It is estimated that up to 10,000 people in Berlin have to live on the streets, compared to only up to 1050 places in emergency shelters. All additional accommodations that were created during the first Corona phase have been abolished again. Those looking for a roof over their heads often cannot even find a place in overcrowded cold shelters.
The Senate has set itself the goal of eliminating homelessness by 2030. How this is to work remains open. Because the vacancy rate remains untouched. Only if housing is no longer speculatively traded as a commodity and vacancies are used can affordable housing be created for all. Here in Habersaathstraße, many good, ready-to-move-in apartments have stood empty until today.
And we are making a start!
