The housing benefit reform is intended to relieve low-income households in the face of high inflation.
Photo: dpa/Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez
Finally, more people should receive housing benefit. But the housing benefit reform decided by the federal cabinet is not enough. Of around 4.7 million households below the poverty line that do not receive social benefits, more than half will not receive any state rent subsidy even after the housing benefit reform.
It is good that the subsidy should be higher than before, but it still remains far from reality. Because even after the reform, the currently offered rental prices do not form the basis for calculating the subsidy. In many communities, the rent levels used to calculate housing benefit have even been downgraded. Many households also have to wait months for the first transfer. Such a delay puts people in existential difficulties. The reform would have been a good way to make the application easier and, for example, to automatically extend approved applications.
The lowest-income tenants already have to spend more than 40 percent of their income on housing costs. And there is no end in sight to the explosion in rental prices and additional costs. This is one of the reasons why the housing benefit reform is not enough to relieve low-income people. Fundamental changes in housing policy are needed. About a lot more affordable housing. The traffic light coalition had promised 100,000 social housing units a year, which they themselves have so far ignored. A stop for rent increases is also needed. It is now also important that tenants are protected from losing their apartment by stopping evictions. Nobody should lose their apartment because of the high ancillary or rental costs.
