‘RENT STRIKE is our answer to the 'crisis’ and the rule of landlords’

I spent just over a week in Berlin earlier this month. I wasn’t there specifically to look at housing or gentrification-related things, but I seem to have a habit of sniffing them out. This isn’t a particularly ‘expert’ piece but I write it for people who are interested in urban and housing activism and point out a few things I noticed and learnt. I also a) don’t speak much German (though I had a translator) and b) don’t have huge knowledge of German housing policy.





I was staying in the Neukölln district with my friend. He lives in a flat of four people, one English and three German, all in their 20s and studying/working, fairly precarious but quite relaxed about it. He pays 345 Euros (c £288) pcm which is high for the area they live in (and higher than many people in the area could afford) but low for a major European city. Neukölln is a big district to the south of the city centre, traditionally quite working class and poor, with a large Turkish/ German-Turkish population and other more recent immigrants. It’s being rapidly gentrified and this mainly manifests itself in rising rents, more upmarket shops and cafes, and more holiday lets and hotels.



On a Sunday afternoon, I went on an anti-gentrification walking tour of one part of Neukölln, near to the Tempelhof airfield/park. Around fifty people (plus two fairly bored cops) showed up. The walk was led by local activists from anarchist and other stripes, and was a satisfying mishmash of what it’s like to organise around 'right to the city’ -related struggles. We were led around different areas of housing and gentrification issues. Here are some of the issues we heard about along the way:

Social housing and social security

We began by hearing about a woman who lives nearby with her two children. An older child moved out and she was told by social security that her housing benefit would no longer cover her now ‘oversized apartment’ (this will sound familiar to anyone with a cursory knowledge of the bedroom tax policy in the UK). This is apparently also a new policy in Germany. She didn’t move and was taken through eviction proceedings. Lots of people protesting, including an eviction resistance with bailiffs, deferred her eviction. In the mean time, her landlord (a housing association) said that they didn’t have any properties appropriate for her size and budget. Some people did some research and found that they did have a property, but it was too expensive for her housing benefit (this is common, even with housing associations). Pickets and protests were held at the housing association’s office until they agreed to let her move in at a reduced rent. Success!

We then visited the grim glass geometry of the district’s Jobcentre, which also functions as the administration for housing and other social security. Like the UK, Germans have suffered from cuts to benefits under the ‘Hartz reforms’ and, additionally, from an increase in the rate they must pay for health insurance. As I understand it, housing policy is entirely devolved to Lander (federal regions) in Germany, then housing benefit is set at local govt level, but also apparently local kiets or boroughs can set their own housing benefit rate (budget permitting, presumably). What’s happening in Neukölln (and presumably elsewhere) is that big social landlords and private landlords are putting up rents, but housing benefit isn’t going up, so people are having to plug the gap.



In a large 1980s housing estate close to the Jobcentre, these rising rents are pushing poor people out, or making them poorer. What’s making this worse is that the housing association which owns it is happy to take on students or people on higher incomes as tenants, so they have even more incentive to raise the rents. Local activists did a survey that suggests some people on the estate were spending 50% of their income on housing costs (here, rent); this is compared to a German average of around 30%. Rent on this estate has increased for some by 200 Euro a month in the last 6 years. For some, this means they simply cannot afford to rent locally and are moving to areas further out of the city, such as Marzahn – an area with high levels of racist/fascist activity, which isn’t a great prospect if you aren’t white.



Relevant Graffiti – ‘Jobcenter, halt’s mal!’ (‘Jobcentre, shut your mouth!)



Artists and gentrification

We visited the ‘Agora collective’, a big Altbau (old house of first half of 20th C) which is now a ‘cultural hub’ for ‘creatives’ with a cafe open some days, yoga classes, a nice garden, things like that. It describes itself as ‘a network that creatively facilitates the exchange, development and encounter of ideas, skills and resources amongst people and projects.’ The activist who told us about the space stressed some of the positive things they were trying to do in the area, but then revealed that the Collective were planning to expand and wanted to buy another building in Neukölln and expand into running short-term let apartment/studios for artists, and other activities. They had found the perfect place, with a family of five people living in it. They went to the owner and made an offer, which has been accepted, and now the family have been given notice to leave.



The activist said that when confronted over this, members of the collective said they opposed evictions and gentrification but this was about giving something to the area and they wanted to create a ‘hub’ where everyone was welcome! A prerequisite for local people having access to such a hub, one would think, would be having somewhere to live locally.



Walking round the area and reading notices in the windows of creative workshops/galleries, I was struck again by two things in relation to artists and gentrification. Firstly, that creative types can do damage far more by what they don’t do than what they do. There is nothing bad about trying to make some kind of a living in the present conditions, or offering your skills to people locally to run, for example, free art workshops or events, or do community gardening projects. But if only certain people can afford the rent, only certain people can come to your workshops. The other thing I noticed was the language of professional do-gooding/social change in discussions and events, often in English, as in this example below.



Having looked at some of the events/people involved in this, I’m not sure it’s wholly bad, but I’m allergic to the concept of being a knight, a crusader or a change agent.



The art workspace where this was advertised had been recently paintbombed by people who prefer their 'urban issues’ discourse to be a bit more black-and-white.



Relevant graffiti: 'Clean walls = higher rents’

Private Landlords of all kinds





'Rent hikes, Modernisation, What to do? 1. Don’t sign anything 2. Talk to your neighbours 3. Seek housing advice



Near Hermanstrasse, a man came down from his flat to talk to us about problems with his landlord. Building works had been carried out badly, tenants complained, landlord ignored them, tenants went to press, landlord terminated their contracts. They are now challenging this in court. ‘Modernisation’, i.e. doing up flats, is nearly always an excuse to raise the rents. Nearby a ‘modernisation’ renovation of flats had been forced on tenants even though they didn’t want it, and they refused to let the builders in. Success! Others hadn’t been so lucky – they had started organising around rent rises with other tenants, and had letters of warning from the landlord, telling them they weren’t allowed to have meetings about housing issues.



There is a wider context round this, which is in an area where there is high demand for private rented housing by more affluent people, landlords know they can afford to chuck older tenants out. In this context, some of the many housing-related activist posters outside an anarchist social centre called for rent solidarity- basically, ‘if you can afford higher rent, don’t pay it. If you’re paying more than 5 Euro per sq m round here, you’re part of the problem.’ I don’t know, though, whether this solidarity tactic actually works!



Another issue related to landlordism is the growing number of tourists coming to the area. There is an increase in holiday apartments, which are obviously not occupied all year round. These are let through agencies and also directly by owners through Air BnB. The latter is quite a new holiday phenomenon where you pay to stay in a spare room in a person’s home, OR to rent their whole home, or sometimes a flat that belongs to them which they mainly use to generate rent. The activists on the walk ‘called out’ those locally who were charging up to 90 Euros a night to rent out their flats. There were also posters naming and shaming these people. I’d be interested if anyone’s written more about the particular effect of Air BnB on housing and house prices in European cities.



Other issues

There are a number of empty properties in the area, which the local authority doesn’t seem to have power or inclination to take over. This obviously increases demand for housing, and helps push up rents. Another issue mentioned was that many white German and other newcomers to the area don’t want to send their kids to state primary schools – probably because many of the kids are Turkish. So they are setting up private schools and at least one local state primary is seeing a worrying drop in numbers and may have to close.



Just walking round Neukölln in particular, it was obvious that there is a real conflict over ‘Wem gehört Berlin?’ (Who owns Berlin?) – graffiti everywhere saying ‘No more rollkoffer’ (no more wheely suitcases) shows a general dislike of those holidaying in the area, and paint-splattered chic bars arguably only add to their street cred (fast recuperation, that). But mainly it’s about rent, and there are posters and graffiti everywhere telling people (how) to organise against rent rises.





Student housing

The day before, I went to a demo held by students over issues with student housing in the city. It was a small and tame affair of maybe 25 people making speeches and having a ‘sleep-out’, but there were many housing issues highlighted. There was an emphasis on housing solidarity, with ‘A Right To The City’ posters, ‘Wir Bleiben Alle’ (We’re staying put), which is a mainstay slogan of the squatting/eviction resistance movement, and so on. The main issue for students is the lack of low-cost dedicated student housing, and the inability to afford private renting in much of the city. Students I spoke to were acutely aware of how this means they can displace poorer people, as described above. Slogans also included: ‘We are all rent-nomads!’ ‘Student homes not a castle city!’ ‘Students against higher rents!’



Neighbourhood housing campaigns

Kotti&Co is a campaign focused around Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg, an area full of what is essentially social housing (it’s owned by private companies but they get some state subsidy to keep rent lower than market rent. Complicated). In the big blocks that surround the underground station and main road, many people of various ethnic backgrounds (but mainly, I think, Turkish) live. Again, rents have risen above housing benefit and the Kotti residents have asked the Berlin Senate to intervene with a rent cap. The man I spoke to found it difficult to describe exactly how they had been organising, but it mainly seemed to involve door-knocking, doing resident surveys, protesting and doing stunts, and a big march in May 2012 where a tent mysteriously sprang up in front of one of the blocks! In this very public space is now a big and cosy shed, bright with banners and bunting, where tea is offered and printed info about a variety of housing and other issues is available. I found this social space created by a permanent ‘occupation’ of a pavement very moving. They have won small victories – no rise on rents above 5.50 per sq m in 2013, but no more guarantees, and probable rent rises next year. More info here.

Things that stood out

1) Because most people in the city are tenants, have similar issues and are supported by a variety of tenants’ rights organisations (some you have to pay annually and get legal advice, some are more ‘activist), there is a healthy network of people ready to advise, protest, resist evictions. However, this may be changing - it seems that home-ownership is becoming more popular in German cities, including Berlin.



2) The strength of housing organising in general – long-established city-wide and neighbourhood tenants’ unions and local campaigns against specific landlords or projects



3)The connections being made between various factors which make/keep people poor - high rent and gap between social rents and housing benefit, high energy bills and unemployment. This was partly because of the energy referendum but it was heartening to see the links being made, at least rhetorically. I am told some groups in Berlin are organising around both energy and housing issues but I didn’t manage to speak to any of these people.



4) The fact that certain policy etc proposals create ground for certain activism – the recent energy referendum (on whether Berlin should own and control its own energy, unfortunately the turnout was just too low for it to be debated) is the most obvious example of this. Also new policy preventing landlords from raising the rent more than 10% upon a renewal of contract. This gives ground to say ‘no – no rent rises at all’.



5) The fact that certain policies are much worse than the UK and are also a spur for organising, For example, social landlords such as housing associations can raise rents, even if (as has happened in Neukölln) local housing allowance hasn’t risen too. This gap which the tenant has to fill is in some way kin to the UK’s ‘bedroom tax’, and has similar consequences for social tenants with kids and/or disabilities and fluctuating health problems.



6) The distinction made by certain housing activists between a) being local and b) being on low income/ no income. This manifests itself in the call for newcomers to the area not to go away, but to struggle with others against rent hikes, ‘modernisation’ and evictions. The discourse is therefore more subtle than ‘wir bleiben alle’ and ‘authentic’ poor locals vs rich outsiders.



7) The seeming lack of connection between squatting and housing issues; because squatting is completely illegal in Germany, unlike in UK where it is still only a criminal offence in domestic property, it’s not used as a housing/protest tactic.



8) The focus on basic organising, collectively refusing to pay, plus public stuff and direct action - blockading and protesting. The fact that rents are calculated by sq m is useful – neat demand of ‘don’t pay more than 5 Euro per sq m’ (in Neukölln) is succinct. Presumably this could be translated in London into something like ‘Don’t pay more than £60 per bedroom per week’?



Hopefully there are some ideas here which housing campaigners and others in the UK can pick up on.