Christian B. didn’t know what to do anymore. As a social scientist, he has 1,500 euros a month net available. However, he still has to pay more than 900 euros in rent for his relatively small Munich apartment. So he applied for housing benefit over the summer because “I’m not making ends meet and I’m reluctant to become a resident myself at the shelter for the homeless that I work for.” B. wrote this in a letter to Mayor Dieter Reiter to draw his attention to the precarious living situation for many people in Munich.
Christian B. can possibly be helped. Housing benefit is intended for people who do not receive unemployment benefit II, social assistance, basic old-age security, reduced earning capacity or social assistance. These state benefits are already included in these groups. It’s about everyone else who has no right to it, but still can’t make ends meet with their money. When the Munich will receive a decision, however, is completely open.
Around 16,000 beneficiaries are already waiting up to a year for an answer from the social services department. The waiting time could now be extended even further: the third federal relief package provides that in future almost three times as many people with relatively low incomes will be able to apply for housing benefit. Nationwide, that would be two million instead of the previous 700,000 people entitled to housing benefit. For Munich, this would mean that around 50,000 people would soon be able to take advantage of state support.
But even in the past, the social services department had too few staff to be able to process the applications quickly. When the people who are dependent on housing benefit support finally receive notification, it does not mean that they will also receive money. Because until then, it is only checked – and often the applicants do not provide information or there are other inquiries from the department staff. If the number of people who are entitled to apply should almost triple in the future, the number of staff responsible for processing would actually have to be increased accordingly.
Far too few staff for a quick processing of the applications
According to the social affairs department, the federal government’s idea of granting those affected an unbureaucratic advance payment “cannot be implemented as of today, since advances can only be paid out if the entitlement requirements are basically met”. This is shared by social officer Dorothee Schiwy on SZ request. That would “further extend” the current waiting times for those affected. However, anyone who urgently needs housing benefit needs support as soon as possible and not after a year or more.
In principle, Schiwy considers the reform of the Housing Benefit Act “to be urgently needed”. You have repeatedly addressed corresponding demands to the federal government. So she wrote at the end of July: “The social department welcomes the comprehensive housing benefit reform announced by the Federal Chancellor.” However, the aim should be to simplify processing and reduce the effort through automated IT-supported work processes. In order for the housing benefit recipients to be able to benefit from the support, the framework conditions for the administration would first have to be significantly improved.
A year ago, social affairs officer Schiwy and the head of the Office for Housing and Migration, Gerhard Mayer, complained that there were far too few staff to process applications quickly, and that the procedure was too complicated. The Green Group therefore wants to make a question this week. She wants to know how many more staff will be needed when the housing benefit reform takes effect on January 1, 2023. The Greens also see potential in how the procedures could be accelerated through better digitization of the housing benefit application. After all, the housing allowance is about emergency aid that should reach people this winter.