Linke on housing

The Left wants Wohngeld (housing allowance) to be paid out faster and to reach more people. To that end, the housing allowance office is to get far more staff, applications are to be simplified, and income limits raised further.

Wohngeld helps people pay rent. Many do not know they can get it. The Left wants more staff at the office. Applications should become easier. More people should be able to get Wohngeld.

Staffing at the housing allowance office is to be tripled in the short term and at least doubled permanently. A bridging payment is to make sure money arrives quickly. Housing allowance scouts, modeled on the vaccination scouts, are to spread information in the neighborhoods. The party wants to rule out moves forced by cost-reduction procedures. The neighborhood supplements for housing costs are to be kept.

The Left wants to end homelessness by 2030 and make Housing First the standard approach. Under this approach, homeless people first get their own apartment along with support from social workers.

By 2030, no one should be without a home. Homeless people should first get their own apartment. They also get help from social workers. There should be separate shelters for women. No one should be evicted onto the street.

The housing stock for homeless people is to grow substantially, and the program to buy occupancy rights is to be expanded. For women, a separate day center and emergency shelters located apart from others are planned. Also planned are sick rooms, funding for medical care, shelters that allow dogs, places to stay, a drop-in center, public toilets, and drinking fountains. Evictions without follow-up accommodation are to be banned. Climate-controlled rooms are to protect people from cold in winter and heat in summer.

The Left wants to grant public renovation subsidies only if rent including heating does not rise and social housing commitments continue. Overall, subsidies are to be geared toward people with low incomes. Free advice and an information campaign are to be added.

Houses should be renovated. Rent including heating should not go up because of that. Only then should the state give subsidies. People with little money should get more help.

For older or low-income homeowners, the program provides for subsidized loans secured by a land register entry. Tenant electricity models are to get more support, and legal hurdles are to be lowered at the federal level. Bremen should press the federal government to restructure subsidies and scrap what the party sees as harmful ones. Advice on saving electricity is to be offered free and locally everywhere. The agency energiekonsens is to become a competence center offering advice and planning for renovations from a single source.

The Left wants to stop selling public land and only grant it under long-term ground leases. Buildings and land are to move into public or common-good ownership wherever possible, for example through rights of first refusal. Against vacancy, orders to use buildings as housing and, if necessary, trustee administration are to be applied.

The city should no longer sell its land. It should only lease it for a long time. The city should also buy more buildings and land. Empty buildings should be lived in again.

The program counts urban development as a public service that should not be left to profit interests. The housing protection law is to be applied strictly and extended to vacant potential housing. If a building stands empty for more than six months without good reason, an order to use it as housing is to be issued. If the order is not followed, a trustee is to take over management.

The Left wants socially and functionally mixed neighborhoods where daily needs can be reached within ten minutes on foot. Disadvantaged neighborhoods are to be supported and displacement prevented through neighborhood protection ordinances. By 2025, there are to be 100 public drinking fountains.

The Left wants mixed neighborhoods. Homes, shops, doctors and culture are close together there. Everything important should be within a 10-minute walk. Poor neighborhoods should get more support.

The party rejects purely residential or purely office districts. Integrated development concepts are to remain the basis of urban development funding. Ground floors are to be used commercially, and there are to be meeting places where no spending is required, toilets and drinking water. Owner-run outdoor dining, nonprofits, clubs and flea markets are to pay no fees for public space. Areas repurposed during the pandemic are to be approved permanently.

The Left wants to develop downtown Bremen into a district where people of all income levels live and work. To do so, the city is to keep or buy land and buildings and build through its own housing companies.

The Left wants to change downtown Bremen. More people should live and work there. Homes should be affordable. The city should keep or buy land and buildings for this.

The program names affordable housing, university facilities downtown, and new buildings that fit the existing structure as the key factors. Dependence on private investors is to end; the municipal companies GEWOBA and BREBAU are to take the lead instead. The Parkhaus Mitte parking garage is to stay publicly owned and is mentioned as a possible university site. For the Überseestadt district, the party calls for a new master plan focused on family-friendliness, transit access, and neighborhood development.

The Left wants to keep rents and land prices from soaring in well-connected neighborhoods and residents from being pushed out. It plans to use neighborhood preservation statutes, conversion bans, and the city's right of first refusal.

Some neighborhoods are very popular. Rents rise fast there. The Left wants to protect renters. The city should set strict rules and buy buildings itself.

The program calls for Milieuschutz (neighborhood preservation) statutes, a ban on converting rentals into condominiums, and strict conditions for new construction projects. GEWOBA and BREBAU are to own more residential and commercial property. The city is also to use its right of first refusal and sectoral zoning plans with priority areas for social housing. Examples named are the Viertel, the Neustadt, and the surroundings of new development sites in Hemelingen, Woltmershausen, and Bremerhaven. In affected areas, renovations are to require a permit and be tied to commitments on rent levels.

The Left wants to raise the share of municipal and cooperative rental housing considerably, ideally to half of all rental units. In its view, a large public-interest sector holds rents down, as the example of Vienna shows.

The Left wants more homes owned by the city and by cooperatives. Ideally this should be every second rental home. Then rents stay lower, the party says. The city should buy homes for this.

According to the program, the share is 27 percent in the city of Bremen and about 43 percent in Bremerhaven. The municipal companies are to buy housing stock that comes on the market; an earlier funding program for stabilizing social structures is to be relaunched for this. GEWOBA's profit payout is to fall from 18 to 4 percent of equity so that surpluses stay in the company. Housing cooperatives are to get more support. At the federal level, the party advocates a new nonprofit housing status.

The Left wants half of all newly built apartments to be social housing and rejects exceptions to this quota. New social housing units are generally to be acquired by the municipal housing companies.

The Left wants more social housing. Every second new apartment should be social housing. There should be no exceptions. The city's companies should buy these apartments.

Framework zoning plans are to designate land reserved solely for social housing. Each district is to get its own targets for municipal, cooperative, and social housing. In districts with high rents, this may lead to a higher quota or more priority areas. The party rejects exceptions because, in its view, the quota can only be enforced if it applies without qualification.

The Left wants to use all available tools to limit rents charged by private landlords and to strengthen housing oversight. The ban on leaving housing vacant is to cover more buildings.

The Left wants to limit rents from private landlords. Today's limits should stay. An office should check on housing more closely. Empty buildings should not be allowed to stay empty.

The existing caps on rent increases in current leases and on new leases are to remain. In the future, empty building units on residential land that can be made livable with limited effort are also to count as unlawful vacancy. Building permits are no longer to be extended if nothing is built. At the same time, building offices are to change their procedures so that permits are issued faster. The program notes that Berlin's rent cap failed because of federal law.

Wherever new building rights are created, urban development contracts are to follow a uniform "Bremen Standard." It is to give social and urban design requirements equal weight alongside ecological ones.

New building projects should follow fixed rules. The Left calls them the Bremen Standard. They cover the environment and social needs. For example: lots of social housing and no high-rises.

The standard includes 50 percent social housing (or 40 percent plus 20 percent price-reduced units) and a fixed cooperative share. It adds a quota for shared open space, no high-rises, balconies in multistory housing, and limits on density. No more than 20 percent of units may become condominiums within ten years. In urban zones, use is to be 50 percent residential, 30 percent commercial, and 20 percent public. District councils are to be involved before commitments are made.

The Left wants to buy out GEWOBA's private co-owners and convert the company into a GmbH (limited liability company). GEWOBA and BREBAU are to follow a rent strategy that holds prices down.

GEWOBA is a large housing company. The city owns only part of it. The Left wants the city to own all of it. Rents there should hardly rise.

The municipal companies are to raise rents not at all or only slightly, pass on renovation costs moderately and over a long period, and deliberately preserve cheap housing. Apartments are to be allocated without discrimination and without using the legal exemptions for the housing sector. Low-cost new construction is to become a core task again. The tenant-friendly rules are to be set down, as in Berlin, in cooperation agreements or a housing supply law.

The Left wants to push listed housing corporations such as Vonovia back out of Bremen's housing market and socialize profit-oriented real estate corporations in the state. It refers to Berlin's referendum "Deutsche Wohnen und Co. enteignen" (expropriate Deutsche Wohnen and Co.).

Big companies own many homes in Bremen. They want to make a profit from them. The Left wants to move these homes into public ownership. This is called socialization.

The program speaks of listed corporations having moved into the Bremen market, a trend it wants to reverse. The party explicitly welcomes the success of the Berlin referendum. Socialization is to apply to the whole state of Bremen.

The Left wants the city to stop selling its land where possible and grant long-term ground leases instead, and to set up a municipal land fund. Public-interest users are to get land below market value.

The city should stop selling its land. It should only lease it out for a long time. A city fund should buy and manage land. Social projects should get land more cheaply.

The land fund is to be able to borrow on its own as a public company so that purchases do not fail because of budget timing, and it is to act as the lessor. Municipal housing companies and housing cooperatives may still buy. Discounted land is intended for cooperatives and municipal companies with low rents, sociocultural projects, and socially oriented start-ups. In the long run, new building rights for vacant sites are to be granted only after the land has been sold to the city, so that the gain in value goes to the city.

The Left wants to keep the existing grant for families with children who buy a house or apartment. It is to be made accessible especially to single parents.

Families with children get money from the city when they buy a home. This applies only up to a certain purchase price. The Left wants to keep it that way. Single parents in particular should be able to get the money.

The grant is a fixed amount and applies in all Bremen districts. It is paid only up to a ceiling on the purchase price. According to the program, this ensures the support reaches the households that need it.

The Left wants the state to fund the Studierendenwerk (student services organization) much more generously to prevent higher cafeteria prices and dorm rents. In addition, 1,000 extra reduced-price dorm places are to be created.

The student services body runs cafeterias and dorms. The Left wants to give it more money. Food and rents should not get more expensive. There should be 1,000 new low-cost dorm places.

In the short term, higher state funding is meant to avert rising prices in cafeterias and dorms. In the long term, it is to enable building dorm places and making the cafeterias climate-neutral. The menu is to put more focus on vegetarian and vegan dishes. In the party's view, the new dorm places would also ease the general rental market.

The Left wants to stop selling public land in Bremen-Nord, lease it at most, and buy additional sites. Nonprofit housing companies are to build affordable apartments there.

The city should stop selling land in Bremen-Nord. It should only lease land. It should also buy more buildings and plots. Low-cost apartments should be built there.

The program cites sites around the market hall and the tax office at Sedanplatz as examples. The city-owned companies BREBAU or GEWOBA are to buy back more Vonovia apartments, for instance on Hegeweg or Hakenwehrstraße. The party opposes waiving the social housing quota on the Rönnebeck riverbank and considers the current 30 percent quota too low. At the Schönebecker Aue, public planning is to combine recreation, culture, and sports. New construction projects are to pay more attention to accessibility.