Poverty | Every second tenant has to limit their living space due to high housing costs

The housing situation is particularly tense in large cities. Photo: dpa/Andreas Arnold Berlin. According to a survey, more than one in two tenants have to limit themselves financially in other areas of life due to high housing costs. According to a survey for the Social Association of Germany (SoVD), which was available to the “Rheinische Post” on Thursday, 18 percent of those surveyed said they had to limit themselves “very much” financially due to their living situation. Another 35 percent described the restrictions as “rather severe”.

The survey was carried out by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of the SoVD. According to the “Rheinische Post”, people were surveyed online at the end of September, including 2,500 tenants.

As the newspaper further reports, the younger the tenants are, the greater the financial restrictions. Around two thirds of the tenants aged 18 to 29 surveyed said they had to limit themselves financially because of rent and additional costs. Among 30 to 39 year olds it was 60 percent. Overall, 48 percent of those surveyed consider their rent to be too high.

“If more than half of the tenants have to restrict themselves just to be able to pay rent and additional costs, something is fundamentally wrong when it comes to the affordability of housing,” said SoVD board chairwoman Michaela Engelmeier to the “Rheinische Post”.

According to the survey, personal life decisions are also influenced by high housing costs. Almost half of those surveyed have therefore already changed or given up concrete life plans. More than a quarter have changed their choice of accommodation and around 20 percent have changed their choice of place of residence. Ten percent said they had changed their family planning because of housing costs.

“If the question of whether people start or expand a family increasingly depends on whether they can afford a suitable apartment, then their wallet is increasingly deciding whether they want to have children,” warned Engelmeier. Housing is “no longer just a question of affordability, but also of social security and the freedom to plan your own life.”

Most respondents are also not very optimistic about the future. According to the survey, 61 percent of tenants do not expect rents and housing costs to generally become more affordable in the future. Against this background, Engelmeier criticized the federal government's planned cuts in housing benefits. These sent out “the completely wrong signal.”

"For many people, housing benefit is indispensable in order to be able to pay their rent and not fall into poverty," said the SoVD boss. “As long as politicians do not effectively limit rising rents, they must not pass on the financial consequences to the tenants.” AFP/nd

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