4th of May 2019 at 1 p.m. - Rathausmarkt
Rent too high. No cheap apartment in sight. Hamburg housing market - absolute madness.

Every third tenant now fears that she* will soon no longer be able to afford the apartment. 
At the first Mietenmove a year ago around 8,000 people from Hamburg took to the streets a solidarity and social housing policy. The protest has paid off: although rent increases in the Saga have not been completely suspended, they are now capped. The Senate also reacted: In the future, plots of land are to be increasingly allocated by way of heritable building rights and not sold - unfortunately, not without exception. And indeed, the city has recently exercised its right of first refusal in order to rescue numerous tenants from the clutches of rental sharks.

But the road to a real shift towards a social housing policy is unfortunately still long. One example: Every year, thousands of building permits are still issued for apartments that only the better earners can afford. And what about the third mix? A mirage. Only about every fourth new apartment in Hamburg is actually a social housing. Conversely, most Hamburg residents cannot afford around 75% of the new apartments!

Cheap housing for families, the homeless and people with low incomes remains a scarce commodity. But a different housing policy, even in real existing capitalism, is possible. This can be seen, for example, in Vienna or Berlin. In Austria's capital, almost two-thirds of the women living in Vienna live in an apartment with capped rents. And in Berlin, the strong tenant-movement has pushed through income-dependent rents in municipal housing companies and saved hundreds of flats with the right of first refusal.