CDU on work and social affairs

The CDU commits to a strong welfare state that aims at overcoming poverty and helps those in need in a targeted way rather than spreading aid broadly. The state is to act firmly against abuse of social benefits. Authorities are to decide faster, and service providers are to get more planning security.

The CDU wants a strong welfare state. Help should go to people who really need it. The CDU wants to act firmly against benefit fraud. Offices should handle applications faster.

The welfare state is to work with church and secular welfare associations, the social economy and civil society under the principle of subsidiarity. In the platform's view, permanent support creates dependency, so aid should aim at leaving poverty behind. Offices are to be staffed and organized so that long approval procedures endanger neither people seeking help nor outpatient care services. For long-running projects such as the sick bay for homeless people, the CDU wants to examine whether institutional funding can replace annual grants.

The CDU wants to favor bundled services in the neighborhoods over centralized facilities and encourage more civic involvement under the banner “Nachbarschaft verbindet” (neighborhood connects). Volunteer work is to be recognized and promoted because, in the platform's view, it strengthens cohesion and relieves the state.

The CDU wants to strengthen services right in the neighborhoods. People should do more for their neighborhood. New advice offices should help with this. The CDU wants to promote volunteer work.

Priority goes to local facilities such as community and cultural centers, senior meeting places, public libraries and neighborhood meeting points. A neighborhood-based approach and district management are also meant to foster integration. As a trial, neighborhood offices are to advise interested people and place them in local projects. According to the platform, volunteering lets the state limit itself to its core tasks in line with subsidiarity.

The CDU wants to enable older people to live actively and independently: through fewer barriers, measures against loneliness, digital education alongside continued offline services, and an improved “Hamburger Hausbesuch” (home visit program). Working beyond retirement age is also to become easier.

The CDU wants to make life easier for older people. There should be fewer obstacles in daily life. Older people should get help with computers and phones. Services without the internet should stay. The CDU also wants to do something about loneliness.

Together with business, age-appropriate, flexible working-time models for jobs after retirement are to be explored. The senior citizens' advisory councils at state and district level are to be more involved and supported. In public spaces, lighting, public restrooms, signage and bike path planning are to take older people's needs into account. Digital mentors in senior facilities are planned, and key services are to remain available close to home. The home visit for people aged 80 and over is to become better known, improved through training and measurable in quality; the CDU also plans contact points for apartment swaps, senior meeting places in neighborhood centers and projects linking young and old.

The CDU wants more and longer-running work opportunities for the long-term unemployed and adequate funding for the subsidized labor market. People at risk of becoming unable to work are to get fast help from a single source.

Some people have been out of work for a very long time. The CDU wants more work programs for them. These programs should last longer. Social projects should get money for a longer time.

The pilot project "Haus der Gesundheit und Arbeit" (House of Health and Work) is to be extended and made a permanent service; it serves people who risk losing their ability to work, for example because of mental health problems. For the long-term unemployed, the program calls for more work opportunities that run longer. Social projects such as the social department store are to get longer-term funding so they can plan better.

The CDU wants to examine whether women's shelters can be expanded and specialized, because in its view there are too few places. Debt counseling and suicide prevention are also to be expanded.

Women's shelters have too few places. The CDU wants to check if more places are possible. People with debts should get more advice. There should also be more help to prevent suicide.

Debt counseling is to be stepped up and also offered in neighborhood centers. The CDU wants to discuss expanding and specializing women's shelters with welfare organizations and shelter operators. Counseling for prostitutes will continue to be funded, also with the aim of helping them leave prostitution. Suicide prevention is to grow, which the program justifies especially with reference to assisted suicide.

The CDU wants to actively advise and support people without housing and keep winter emergency shelters open during the day in severe cold. Social and housing policy are to work together to secure enough housing for people in need.

Some people have no home. The CDU wants to help them more. In winter, emergency shelters should also stay open during the day when it is very cold. No one should freeze to death on the street.

To ease the housing market, more apartments for students, trainees and young workers are to be built and subsidized where appropriate. The program names street social work and safe spaces for especially vulnerable groups as low-threshold help. Outpatient support in the so-called Stufe 3 project is to grow so that long-term homeless people settle permanently into housing. A new survey of homeless people and better coordination of medical services with aid organizations are also planned.

Together with business and welfare associations, the CDU wants to draw up a plan that prepares Hamburg for an aging population. It is meant to set goals and measures for all areas affected.

Hamburg will soon have more older people. Many workers will retire. The CDU wants to make a plan for this. Companies and welfare groups should help write it.

The program sees the public sector as a particular challenge because the baby boomers will retire in five to ten years. The CDU wants to respond to the shortage of skilled workers with digitalization, automation, AI and a review of which tasks the state still needs to perform. Recruiting skilled workers from abroad and incentives for part-time work in retirement age are added. For older people, neighborhood engagement, multigenerational houses and senior cooperatives are to be supported.