Linke on housing

The Left wants to fund the conversion of homes to suit older people so that they can live independently. It also calls for simpler housing benefit applications, home swaps and assisted living options in rural areas.

Older people often need homes without obstacles. The Left wants to give money for remodeling. Applying for housing benefit should be easier. Older people should be able to swap their home for a smaller one. There should be more assisted living in rural areas.

The platform argues that seniors often need more support and barrier-free spaces. Under the home-swap idea, people could exchange their current home for a smaller, accessible one. Assisted living is to be funded specifically in rural areas.

The Left wants to designate tight housing markets by state ordinance so that a Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) can apply in the cities. At the same time, non-profit housing providers are to be strengthened because, in the party's view, housing must be affordable, safe and as accessible as possible.

The Left wants rents in the cities to rise less. For this, the state should make a rent brake possible. This is a rule that limits rents in new leases. Landlords who do not aim for profit should get more help.

The program calls safe housing a human right and counts rising base rents and utility costs among the most pressing social issues. It criticizes that large landlords and listed companies pay out returns from rents while municipalities lack money to buy land and build themselves. Housing cost benefits often no longer cover actual housing costs, and housing allowance applications and homelessness are rising, the program says. The ordinance on a tight housing market is the legal precondition for the rent brake to apply in an area.

The Left wants state housing subsidies to go exclusively to social rental housing whose rent and occupancy restrictions never expire. Home ownership would no longer be subsidized. The platform argues that such restrictions have almost entirely lapsed in the state and that prices have risen as a result.

The Left wants to spend housing subsidies only on social housing. These homes should stay cheap forever. There should be no more subsidies for buying a home. Nobody should lose their home through eviction.

Subsidies would be limited to social rental housing with permanent restrictions. Municipalities would get support for housing homeless people. The party wants to prevent evictions and cutoffs of electricity and heating. The existing elevator program would be turned into a larger, better-funded program for accessible conversions and energy retrofits. In the platform's view, current subsidies fail to secure affordable housing in sought-after locations.

The Left wants to make applying for Wohngeld (housing benefit) much simpler and set a six-week deadline for decisions. Tenants would also bear fewer costs: the modernization surcharge would be abolished and property tax could no longer be passed on to them. According to the platform, only about a third of those eligible currently receive the benefit.

The Left wants to make it easier to apply for housing benefit. The office should decide within six weeks. Tenants should no longer pay for building upgrades. Tenants should also no longer pay the property tax. A fund should pay heating costs for poor tenants.

Housing benefit applications would have to be decided within six weeks, and federal funds would be used in full. The party wants to legally bar large landlords from inflating service charges through their own in-house contractors. Renovations and heating replacements should not raise the total rent including heating. The Left wants to push for socially tiered electricity and heating prices and low-cost basic tariffs. A fund would cover heating costs with little red tape when households cannot afford them. The platform sees the benefit as helpful but considers steady federal funding for existing and new rental housing more important.

The Left wants to set up a state-owned housing construction company. It would complement cooperatives and municipal housing companies and create homes that stay permanently under social housing restrictions.

The Left wants the state to start its own housing company. It should build cheap homes. These homes should stay social housing for good. The company should work together with cooperatives and cities.

The company is meant as a partner to existing cooperatives and municipal firms, neither replacing nor competing with them. It would mainly take over stalled building projects or step in as final investor so that cooperative projects become financially viable. It would also operate where no one else offers affordable housing.

The Left wants to add considerably more state money to the federal "Junges Wohnen" (housing for young people) program so that apprentices also get dorm places. The platform notes that fewer than ten percent of students get a place and that no new dorm rooms have been built since 2013.

The Left wants more dorms for students and apprentices. The state should give much more money for this. The rooms should stay reserved for young people for good. The platform says there are too few places today.

The state's share of the funding would rise considerably. The subsidy per building would be set high enough that construction pays off even with rent restrictions. The occupancy restriction, meaning the rooms are reserved for young people in training, would have no time limit. According to the platform, apprentices in cross-regional vocational school classes are especially affected.

The Left wants to fund a new urban redevelopment program through 2035 to reduce vacancies and upgrade existing buildings. It favors reuse, moderate densification, and climate-neutral construction, and rejects new building on undeveloped land at the edge of towns. A law would penalize the misuse of housing for other purposes.

The Left wants a new program to rebuild cities through 2035. Empty buildings should be used again or torn down. Old apartment blocks should become nicer. People who misuse homes should be punished. Misuse means a home is not used for living.

Urban redevelopment programs would get more state and federal money, and the municipalities' own share would drop. A (re)municipalization fund would help towns bring land and buildings into public ownership, and the state would finance a follow-up solution for the housing sector's old debts. Prefabricated apartment blocks would be made more attractive through upgrades, merging apartments, and removing upper floors. Building materials such as wood, straw, or clay and alternative forms of housing would also be subsidized. For owner-occupied homes, the platform plans income-tiered subsidies for energy retrofits and heating replacement.