Protest for the Europe-wide “Housing Action Day” in Berlin
Photo: dpa-Zentralbild / Paul Zinken
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Thousands of people across Europe demonstrated on Saturday for cheap rents and decent living. The action day “Housing Action Day 2021” took place in Germany under the motto “Living for people instead of for profit” in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Potsdam and Stuttgart, among others. The protests were coordinated by the alliance against displacement and rent madness, a nationwide association of tenants’ initiatives and right-to-town groups. The alliance works extra-parliamentarily and without the participation of parties. His website calls for a stop in the conversion of rental apartments into condominiums, a reduction in rents, the cancellation of rental debts and the socialization of housing groups.
During the protests, great importance was generally attached to compliance with the corona rules – the rallies also had different local focuses. In Hamburg, several hundred participants demonstrated at places of real estate speculation, “spots of shame,” as the activists called them. At the new horse market, for example, there was protest against the construction of the »Paulihaus«. “It is incomprehensible that existing businesses should be displaced and trees cut down to make way for a block of paper,” said Veronika Pramor from the initiative “St. Pauli Code Now «. “With the new building, the New Horse Market would change from a place for everyone to an exclusive place for a few.” There were also protests on the site of the former Holsten brewery. After several sales, the land prices are so high, according to the initiative “Knallt am Dollsten”, that affordable living space can hardly be realized.
In Leipzig, the protest was spread over four rallies and demonstrations spread across the city. There were campaigns in the east of Leipzig at Neustädter Markt, in the south at Connewitzer Kreuz, in the west in the area of Am Adler and in the middle on Karl-Tauchnitz-Strasse. “Low income, Hartz IV and high rents determine the reality of life – and the situation on the housing market is noticeably worsening,” explained four city initiatives in a joint appeal. The municipal housing association in Leipzig was particularly criticized. State-owned companies were also the focus of the protests in Frankfurt am Main. The Mietentscheid Frankfurt initiative had awarded a prize for the “most brazen rent increase in the corona crisis” to Nassauische Heimstätte – the largest Hessian housing association.
Despite the rain, more than a thousand people demonstrated in Berlin for a change in housing policy. The protest march moved from Alexanderplatz to Mariannenplatz in Kreuzberg.
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