The green-red town hall coalition wants to improve the housing situation of young people. With the establishment of a municipal trainee plant, the Greens and SPD / Volt want to create affordable living space for trainees, as they propose to the city council in a joint proposal. To this end, a decision in principle is to be made in the general assembly this Thursday. “We have been dealing with this topic for a long time,” says Simone Burger, spokeswoman for housing policy for the SPD / Volt parliamentary group. “Not only students find it difficult on the Munich housing market, but also trainees.” With their fixed-term contracts and low wages, it is particularly difficult for them to find affordable accommodation, especially since their parents often do not have the necessary money for a guarantee, as many landlords ask for. While students are supported by the Studentenwerk, there is still nothing comparable for trainees.
Grün-Rot is planning a broad-based social work that not only looks after the creation of affordable housing, but also enables the trainees to participate in their “Munich trainee plant”. “The residents should determine their own household items and receive a budget that they can use freely, for example for urban gardening or beer benches,” says Burger. In addition, a “training advisory board” is to be set up to help with professional or social issues. It is still unclear whether the trainee plant will be set up as a foundation, a municipal company or in another form of organization. One of the two municipal housing associations, Gewofag and GWG, is to take care of the construction, purchase and maintenance of appropriate housing options.
A few hundred apartments for 42,000 trainees
The trainee work is aimed at all trainees of the classic dual vocational training, the vocational schools, the technical, technical and master schools and the technical academies, i.e. potentially more than 42,000 apprentices at present. The prerequisite for an application is that the training company is in Munich and that the trainees are at least 18 years old. There are already locations for apprentice apartments. As early as 2018, the city and Gewofag created 118 apartments for young trainees on Innsbrucker Ring. The flat rent for a 21 square meter apartment is 496 euros per month. The entrepreneurs contribute to this rent with a grant of 180 euros, leaving the trainee with 316 euros.
Another 211 apartments are to be completed on Hanns-Seidel-Platz in 2023. A location is currently being planned in Freiham. The town hall coalition is now applying for a model project for apprentice apartments to be launched on Leibengerstrasse in Riem. The plan is for the trainee factory to acquire rights to the properties at Hanns-Seidel-Platz, Freiham and Leibengerstrasse. The apartments themselves remain the property of Gewofag, which also takes over the entire rental business. A third of the apartments are to be given to urban trainees, a third to Munich companies and a further third directly to apprentices – with the apprentice’s commitment to share in the costs.