icon image. Photo: About dts news agency
Hanover. Nationwide there is apparently a striking lack of barrier-free and age-appropriate apartments. This is the result of an investigation by the Hanoverian Pestel Institute on behalf of the Federal Association of German Building Materials Specialists (BDB), about which the newspapers of the Funke media group (Monday editions) report.
“It can’t stay the way it looks today: Germany has an unacceptably large ‘vacancy’ in age-appropriate housing,” said Matthias Günther, head of the study, to the Funke newspapers. In fact, around 2.8 million senior households currently need age-appropriate housing. “But today there are only around 600,000 low-barrier apartments in which seniors live,” says Günther. By 2040, at least 3.3 million age-appropriate homes will be needed for seniors. According to the study entitled “Prognosis on the housing market and the pension situation of the baby boomers”, just one in four apartments occupied by seniors aged at least 65 years is currently completely free of thresholds or uneven floors. In just under 17 percent of the buildings, the apartments occupied by senior citizens could be reached without steps or thresholds. According to this, 22.4 percent of all households with senior citizens have a level access to the shower, only half of the senior households find the space in the bathroom to be sufficient. In view of the results, the German building materials trade is in favor of subsidy funding.
“If you were to promote the age-appropriate conversion according to income and measures, with grant packages of up to 7,500 euros per residential unit, you could prevent problems that people will face in old age,” said BFB President Katharina Metzger to the Funke newspapers. “Being mobile with a walker or wheelchair within your own four walls is an important point.” On the other hand, she criticized the previous model of low-interest KfW loans: “Which 70-year-old still ties a loan to his leg that runs for 30 years?” With a subsidy, you would have to spend some money now, but in the future you would save billions in health and long-term care insurance. The industrial unions Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG Bau) are also pushing for a political change of course.
Germany is facing a “dramatic gray housing shortage,” said IG Bau boss Robert Feiger to the Funke newspapers. The country is “not at all prepared for the demographic development” when it comes to housing construction. Feiger called for a self-commitment from the housing companies: every fifth apartment that becomes vacant must be renovated to make it age-appropriate. This applies to both municipal and church as well as listed real estate groups.
more news from the region
