The Myth of Social Housing

For some time now, the housing question has once again been a subject of public debate: the issue of housing provision for those who have nothing to gain from a booming real estate market. This also includes people seeking refuge. The response to demands for more social housing, however, is limited: there has not been enough new construction to compensate for the number of social housing units lost due to the expiry of occupancy commitments for publicly assisted housing. But is the social housing system even capable of guaranteeing low rents in the long term?

This publication clears up misunderstandings and explains why social housing of the sort built in the German Federal Republic and West Berlin is a myth. Instead of meeting the long-term needs of low-income households it has so far primarily been about promoting economic development and private property ownership, instead of meeting the long-term needs of low-income households. This is reason enough to examine the principle of social housing and ask why it is so difficult to reform.

The third, revised edition of The Myth of Social Housing provides updated figures and content in Andrej Holm’s text, as well as a new introduction by the editors, Ulrike Hamann and Sandy Kaltenborn, which reflects on Berlin’s housing policy changes of the last ten years.