Linke on housing

The Left wants a rent cap that lowers excessive rents and sharply limits further increases. Index-linked rents and the conversion of rental apartments into condominiums would be banned. The platform argues that housing is a basic right and that rent must not make people poor.

The Left wants a rent cap. This is an upper limit for rents. Rents that are too high should go down. Rents should hardly be allowed to rise. The party wants to ban index-linked rents. These are rents that go up automatically with prices.

For low and middle incomes, rent should take up no more than one third of net income. Furnishing an apartment should no longer justify sharply higher rents. Energy-efficiency renovations should not raise the total rent including heating. The rent index (Mietspiegel) would be reformed to include cheap existing rents. Every district would get free tenant counseling.

The Left wants at least 5,000 new publicly subsidized apartments with controlled rents each year. The city should build and rent out more housing itself, and subsidized apartments should stay social housing permanently, following Vienna's example. The city should buy land instead of selling it.

The Left wants more social housing. There should be at least 5,000 new units every year. The city should build more homes itself. Social housing should stay cheap forever. The city should buy land and not sell it.

The platform notes that of the current 80,000 social housing units, more than 20,000 will lose their status by 2028, while 600,000 households would qualify for one. Construction should be climate-friendly and focus on existing buildings or already paved land to preserve green space. New housing should follow actual need, for example for large families, singles and older people who need accessible, affordable homes. Communal housing, building cooperatives and small cooperatives would be supported. Purchased land would be used for affordable housing and social facilities.

The Left wants to reorient the city-owned housing company SAGA toward the public good. Profits would no longer go to the state budget but into maintenance and new construction. SAGA would have to lower its rents and refrain from increases in the coming years.

SAGA belongs to the city of Hamburg. It rents out a great many apartments. The Left wants SAGA to use its profits for repairs and new homes. It should no longer hand money to the city. Rents at SAGA should go down.

According to the platform, SAGA owns 140,000 apartments and made a profit of 182.6 million euros in 2023, about 1,300 euros per apartment. The party criticizes that a substantial share goes into the city budget and that rents rise regularly on the Senate's instruction. It expects lower SAGA rents to dampen the citywide rent index. All SAGA apartments would remain social housing permanently.

The Left wants to take large, profit-oriented housing companies into public ownership. It also calls for a citywide right of first refusal for the public sector and a new non-profit housing status. In the party's view, the shortage of affordable housing cannot be solved by new construction alone.

The Left wants to expropriate large housing companies. The apartments would then belong to the public. The city should have the first right to buy houses and land everywhere. The party says no one should make a profit from housing. Then rents would fall.

The socialized companies would serve public-interest goals instead of generating dividends. The right of first refusal would apply across the whole city to bring land and buildings into public ownership. The platform describes rents as redistribution from the bottom to the top that makes many people poorer. In the party's view, removing profit from housing would take away the basis for speculation.

The Left wants a public register of vacant and misused apartments. Using housing as vacation rentals or offices would be banned, and speculative vacancies would lead to expropriation. Apartment swaps would also be promoted.

Some apartments stand empty. Others are used as vacation rentals or offices. The Left wants to ban that. A register should show which apartments are empty. Owners who leave homes empty to make more money later should lose them.

The register would record who leaves housing empty or uses it for other purposes, for what reason and since when. For vacancies held for speculation, the platform calls for consistent expropriation. In apartment swaps, the existing rental terms would be kept. People who voluntarily move to a smaller apartment, for example in old age, should not face a higher rent burden as a result.

The Left wants the Senate to commit to ending homelessness by 2030. The main tools are access to housing without preconditions and an expansion of Housing First. Evictions that leave people homeless would no longer take place.

The Left wants no one to live on the street by 2030. Homeless people should get an apartment first. This is called Housing First. No one should be evicted and end up homeless. Shelters should be small and have single rooms.

The plan includes more occupancy rights to house disadvantaged households and a support system offering short-term paths to an independent life. Large mass shelters would be replaced by smaller, decentralized facilities with single rooms. Homeless women and lesbian, intersex, non-binary, trans and agender people (FLINTA*) would get dedicated safe spaces. The winter emergency program would be open all day, along with air-conditioned day centers and heat protection.