Warschauer Straße: District office is planning new housing solutions for the needy!

Warschauer Straße: District office is planning new housing solutions for the needy!

The district office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg plans an innovative approach to make vacant apartments at Warschauer Straße 25 and Kopernikusstraße 6 accessible to people in need. The aim is to implement Housing First projects to provide affordable living space for trainees and formerly homeless people. The affected buildings are located in the Weberwiese social conservation area, and the structural state has defects that exceed the significance threshold of the Federal Administrative Court. At the moment, at least a third of the apartments in the houses are significantly empty, such as Developmentstadt.de

In order to be able to use the empty real estate sensibly, the district office is planning a concept for social use in the coming weeks. The focus is on cooperations with providers that have already implemented models such as Housing First or residential projects for trainees. District City Councilor Florian Schmidt emphasizes that these measures can implement several housing policy goals in Berlin. Interested carriers are invited to contact the district office in order to check possible partnerships. A prerequisite for this are permanent rental contracts on local conditions.

planned projects and investments

The background of these initiatives is supported by the success of Housing First projects in Berlin. The model projects "Housing First Berlin" and "Housing First for Women Berlin" started in October 2018. These projects have shown that it is possible to offer homeless people with multiple problem situations unconditionally to offer an apartment that is secured in the rental contract and at the same time provide an unlimited range of support. An evaluation result showed a ratio of 97.3 % in one of the project sponsors, which shows the effectiveness of this approach, as alice.ash-berlin.eu reports.

The core principle of Housing First includes the separation of living and support as well as the choice of users. These predominantly accepting approaches of damage minimization have positive effects on the quality of life of those affected, despite existing challenges such as unemployment and dependence on social benefits. Users have reported that they have experienced improved satisfaction with their residential and employment situation.

The political debate in Germany about the Housing First approach was significantly promoted by the positive experiences in Berlin. Responsible politicians are increasingly convinced of the chances of success of these projects, which were also able to convince many landlords through professional public relations between project sponsors to offer apartments. Bundesag.de Projects take place, while the coalition agreement has been agreed. With the support of the new social senator Katja Kipping, Berlin has formulated the ambitious goal of ending homelessness by 2030, which corresponds to the goal of the European Parliament. The current plans in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg could be a crucial step in the right direction.