Wiesbaden (dpa / lhe) – At the start of the winter semester 2022/23, many students in Hesse are still looking for an apartment. Waiting lists for the dormitories of the five student unions in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Gießen, Kassel and Marburg are long, according to a survey by the German news agency.
The situation is particularly tense in the Rhine-Main area. The Studierendenwerk in Frankfurt received more than 6,000 applications for places in university residences this year, explained Sylvia Kobus, spokesperson for the Studierendenwerk. There are currently over 3,000 students on the waiting list. “There are not enough affordable housing in the entire Rhine-Main area.” Students will compete for this with other people looking for housing with lower incomes. The Studierendenwerk offers around 3800 rooms in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Rüsselsheim and Geisenheim.
According to their own statements, the student union in the main metropolis can only supply about five percent of the more than 75,000 students in their area of responsibility with existing rooms. In addition to Goethe University, the University of Applied Sciences and the Frankfurt Academy of Art and Music, the plant also oversees the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden and Rüsselsheim, as well as the universities of Offenbach and Geisenheim. In addition to their own offerings, there are church rooms and non-profit building associations. According to the Studierendenwerk, a total of nearly nine percent of students can be provided with this.
“The housing situation is getting worse and waiting lists are getting longer every year,” said Tim Hoppe, head of housing at the General Student Committee (AStA) in Frankfurt. “The anger of the students is enormous”. Finding a room on the private real estate market for the estimated 360 euros as a BAföG flat rate is almost impossible.
The demand for affordable housing is therefore also high in Darmstadt. Currently there are about 2,500 students from the Technical University and the University waiting for a place in a university residence. A Studierendenwerk employee explained that the waiting list was the longest in the past nine years. Before the August 2018 pandemic, there were around 1,600 students on the list, in recent years between 1,200 and 1,400. According to the employee, more than 600 of the approximately 2,800 beds in the Studierendenwerk’s eight dormitories could be allocated before this semester.
One reason for the strong demand is the return to face-to-face teaching in the winter semester. Due to the corona pandemic, many students have not had to move to their place of study after nearly two years of online digital teaching. “The situation is more tense than in the last two years,” said Matthias Nothnagel of the Kassel student union. Not only new students would return to college, but also students who had previously only studied online. There are currently 480 open applications for a place in a residence. According to the Studierendenwerk, 310 of the approximately 1000 places in the residences have been reallocated for the winter semester.
The situation is similar to the Gießen student union. “The demand for dormitories has increased again since the last semesters of the pandemic,” said Ralph Vogtmann of the Gießen student union. The facility of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, the Technical University of Central Hesse in Friedberg and the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda offers a total of around 3,400 beds in dormitories. The candidate list currently includes a total of approximately 1700 students. 1,300 of them alone are looking for a room in Gießen.
There are also 1,300 students on the waiting list at the Marburg student union. “As always, the situation is tense in the winter semester,” said Franziska Busch of the Studentenwerk. According to her, around 600 students were able to find accommodation in one of the 2,100 rooms offered in September and October. For students who have not found a room by the start of the semester, the student union has set up 15 places in emergency accommodation. According to information, short-term transitional accommodation and emergency beds will also be available in Kassel and Gießen.
