A cooperative, a sick tenant, a number: 2,495 evictions show who owns Berlin

On September 7th, Wiebke, a seriously and terminally ill woman, was to be thrown out of her apartment in the Ideal Passage in Neukölln after 25 years. Not from an anonymous real estate group, but from the Ideal building cooperative - a cooperative founded in 1907 that is officially dedicated to social housing construction. Wiebke had dared to complain about incorrect utility bills and reduce her rent accordingly. The cooperative's response: ten terminations in a row, most recently based on exactly the rent reduction that they had provoked in the first place. The “Prevent Forced Eviction” alliance gave the cooperative management a letter asking for a delay - and was thrown out of its own premises before the letter was even finished being read.

This story is not an isolated case, it is statistics. In 2024, 2,495 households were forcibly evicted in Berlin - more than ever before, an increase from 1,702 in 2020. This is not a natural disaster, this is the logical consequence of a housing market that systematically sorts out people like Wiebke as soon as they resist or become ill. Of the 7,720 eviction notices in 2024, around a third actually ended with the bailiff at the door - the rest is the silent threat that landlords and even “cooperatives” use to keep their tenants disciplined.

The fact that a cooperative of all people resorts to this means exposes an illusion that is also often cultivated in left-wing debates: that cooperative ownership is inherently solidarity-based. It is not as soon as it turns administratively against its own members. A legal form protects no one from eviction - only organized resistance does that, and this has existed in Berlin for over a decade in the form of “Prevent forced evictions”, which has been blocking, accompanying and delaying evictions for 13 years, where the state and its bailiffs deliver what the market orders.

On September 5th, two days before Wiebke's scheduled eviction, thousands marched under the motto "Give us the apartments! Down with the rents!" took to the street in front of the Red Town Hall - shortly before the House of Representatives elections, with demands that have been the same for years: expropriation of large real estate companies, a ban on terminations for personal use, an end to evictions into homelessness. The referendum to “expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co” was years ago, and there is still no socialization law. Politicians who could expropriate would rather opt for the next question in the House of Representatives than to break with property.

What remains is the neighborhood that stands in front of the door, the alliance that hands over the letter despite being thrown out, the solidarity that knows no file number. Wiebke's case has not yet been decided, but it is an example of what remains to be done: don't wait for the next election promise, but rather make each individual eviction so expensive and so visible that it is no longer worth it.

Sources

nd-aktuell: Threatening forced eviction at the Ideal building cooperative
rbb24: Number of forced evictions in Berlin will continue to rise in 2024
Berlin Tenants Association: Big rent demonstration on September 5th
Alliance to prevent forced evictions