Campaign to stop rents in Hessen

• fromChristoph manus

  –

  conclude

–

A broad alliance is fighting to ensure that rents in Hessen may only be increased by one percent per year. The kick-off event for the campaign is in the Paulskirche.

A broad alliance of trade unions, tenant protection associations, charities and political parties wants to ensure that apartment rents in all Hessian municipalities with a tight housing market may only rise by a maximum of one percent in the next five years. To this end, they have started a petition.

“In Hesse, the situation on the housing market, especially in metropolitan areas and university towns, has become so acute that even people with middle incomes can no longer find an affordable apartment”, argue the initiators of the petition, Caritas Frankfurt, of the DGB Frankfurt -Rhein-Main and the German Tenants’ Association of Hesse. It is therefore necessary that in the legally defined areas with tight housing markets, no rent increases at all or only very limited rent increases take place for a while.

The Lord Mayor of Frankfurt Peter Feldmann (SPD) had spoken out in favor of such a general “rent freeze” last year. The SPD parliamentary group submitted an expert opinion in March that came to the conclusion that the state should limit rent increases for a certain period of time. The left is also promoting a rent cover. The black-green state government rejects the request.

In addition to Caritas, DGB, Mieterbund, SPD and Linken, the recently launched collection of signatures has so far supported, among others, the Hesse social policy offensive, the Hesse nature lovers, the Diakonische Werk for Frankfurt and Offenbach and the Asta of the Frankfurt Goethe University.

The campaign kick-off event is to take place on December 13th, 6 p.m., in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. Feldmann, the Frankfurt Caritas director Gaby Hagmans, the Frankfurt DGB boss Philipp Jacks and Eva-Maria Winckelmann, director of the German Tenants’ Association, will speak there. Because of the pandemic, the audience can only follow the event online.

More about the campaign under https://petition-mietenstopp.de.

–