Overburdened offices: when housing benefit meets reality

More people should be able to receive housing benefit from January, but the waiting times are already long. Massive staff shortages and escalating bureaucracy are pushing offices and authorities to their limits.

Months of waiting for housing benefit – Sandra Zehnder already knows that. The single mother from Stuttgart applied for housing benefit from the city in September. She lives with her two daughters in a normal three-room apartment and needs support because she works part-time in the kindergarten, but the wages are not enough. If the housing benefit does not come on time, several hundred euros will suddenly be missing from the household budget.

And it also has other consequences: Subsidies for children’s trips, for school supplies or childcare costs are only available with proof of housing benefit. And you have to apply for it every year. Zehnder’s children have been going to school for a long time. It’s even worse for needy parents of smaller children when care depends on it, she says.

She received a letter from the office. However, it only says that there may be delays in processing due to the high volume. A problem that is likely to get worse.

Who should process all the applications?

Because the comprehensive reform of the housing allowance passed the Federal Council today and has thus been decided. As a result, the social benefit will benefit more people from the coming year and will also be higher. Households that do not receive social benefits but still have little money can apply for housing benefit. In the future, people who earn the minimum wage or have a pension of a comparable amount should also be able to benefit from housing benefit. So far, 600,000 households have received this state subsidy for their rent. With the reform, up to 1.4 million more will be eligible – and that could cause a flood of additional applications that many offices may not be able to process so quickly.

Nowhere is this more evident than in large cities, and especially in a state capital like Stuttgart, says Mayor Frank Nopper. “Extremely long queues are programmed,” fears the CDU politician. In Stuttgart, the number of those who can apply for housing benefit will increase by around 250 percent.

The SPD in the Stuttgart municipal council has already called for more staff for the housing benefit office, but the mayor is not very optimistic: “We will not be able to fill the positions without further ado, so that we could cope with this large onslaught.”

A similar rush is expected in Freiburg. The city expects this to triple. A spokesman said she wants to increase the housing benefit office by twelve temporary positions. However, it is a challenge to fill these positions, because after all, all municipalities are looking for suitable specialists for the housing benefit offices.

Not enough qualified applications

The Baden-Württemberg town council confirms this. Benjamin Lachat, head of the department for family and social affairs, speaks of an “enormous challenge”. Smaller municipalities are also affected: the city of Waldkirch near Freiburg has only two people in one and a half jobs in its housing benefit authority. One will be retiring soon. In the short term, such a position cannot be filled with qualified people, and there are simply not enough qualified applications.

Because administrative experts with the appropriate experience are desirable, because housing benefit is a complex matter. It would therefore be possible to temporarily transfer employees from other administrative offices to a housing benefit office, but that also takes time. Faster digitization would also be helpful.

What pleases the municipal association: The state of Baden-Württemberg has promised 17 million euros to increase jobs.

The German Association of Cities is also calling for nationwide support. The range extends from 15 additional employees required in a district town like Lüdenscheid in North Rhine-Westphalia to 100 additional employees in a large city like Dresden. There, too, those entitled to housing benefit sometimes wait months for their application to be processed.

High sick leave

A shortage of skilled workers is noticeable in many places in the city administration, and according to the city of Stuttgart there is also an increased number of corona sick leave. This affects, for example, citizens’ offices, driver’s license and registration offices, the immigration authorities and parts of the building administration. Again SWR recently reported, people are queuing, for example in front of the citizens’ office in Stuttgart-Mitte. Many urgently needed documents, could not get an appointment and were even sent away again.

The citizens’ office in Stuttgart-West is closed completely – temporarily, due to a lack of staff: seven of the ten employees are sick, as is the case in the SWR-report is called. Ten people for the largest downtown district with more than 50,000 residents.

Laws must be implementable in the administrations

What to do? Stuttgart’s Lord Mayor Nopper warned against inflating regulations too much. “Federal and state governments must always ensure that laws that have been passed can still be implemented in the municipal administrations.” City council department head Lachat suggested giving preference to those who would otherwise slip into other social services and then in turn could employ the job centers as well.

Sandra Zehnder, who is still waiting for her housing benefit notice, understands that the authorities are overburdened. “But that doesn’t make things any better for eligible people,” she said. Especially since many bills, such as for insurance, will come in January, and that with high energy prices. Nevertheless, in the end there is only one thing left to do: keep waiting.

After all, the new law already provides for one thing in order to relieve the authorities: They should also be able to temporarily pay out the increased housing benefit if they are overburdened. The responsible committee even wanted to postpone the new housing benefit law until April so that it could be implemented in an “administrable” manner.

But is that enough? Experts from the City Day believe that at least half a year’s notice would be necessary, and even a whole year’s notice would be ideal. Because three months would be needed just for ordinary recruitment procedures.