Childcare in need: Action day fights against the expulsion of children's shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Childcare in need: Action day fights against the expulsion of children's shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg

childcare facilities set signs against displacement through action day in Berlin

Last weekend there was a day of action in Berlin-Kreuzberg, on which kindergartens and cribs put a strong signal against rising rents and the impending expulsion from their premises. With up to 28 euros per square meter, the rental costs for many facilities are simply no longer portable, Babette sperred from the Berlin day care center and crib day association (DAKS).

The situation is particularly precarious for the approximately 1,000 kindergartens and cribs in Berlin with fewer than 50 children who often rented shops in shopping streets. Without price regulation, they are increasingly faced with gradual rental or forced to give up or move. In the past ten years, this problem has intensified significantly, according to a DAKS employee. This year alone there were eight new cases of displacements and massive rent increases.

The DAKS demands are clear: a rent reflection point for commercial space on which facilities such as kindergartens are located, as well as a rental priority for social projects and the abolition of tax benefits for vacancy. "We can no longer allow us to invest in pedagogical quality to fill the bags of real estate speculators," emphasized Spere.

politicians like Green Spokeswoman Katrin Schmidberger support the demands of the institutions and are committed to ensuring that urban housing associations prefer to provide commercial space for social purposes. In addition, they advocate that the state grants guarantees so that kindergartens can secure rooms in the long term, for example by buying.

A visit day in the kindergartens Kruemelkinder and Munkelrube was also on the program of the action day event. Other facilities in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg took part with their own actions to draw attention to the precarious situation of childcare facilities and to request support.