It’s going to be tight, although there’s no lack of goodwill. The number of people fleeing from Ukraine to Germany is increasing by the tens of thousands every day, and by the end of this week it is likely to be more than 200,000 – and that’s just the officially registered ones. Helpers welcome them with admirable willingness to help, offer their granny flat or a room, even for a few nights. But the question is already posed: where will the likely hundreds of thousands of refugees live? So far, they have mainly landed in large cities, with around 60,000 Ukrainian refugees in Berlin alone. It is precisely the metropolises where the lack of housing is already causing problems for many citizens. Therein lies a social explosive force.
It is not yet known how many Ukrainians will remain. But one should have no illusions: Putin will not withdraw from Ukraine so quickly, he will continue to have houses, schools and businesses destroyed and terrorize the citizens. It’s not an environment that mothers and their children—the majority of refugees—are rushing back to. You need affordable accommodation in Germany. For the big cities, this means that there is a threat of cut-throat competition for cheap apartments.
It doesn’t help to wipe this off the table with the phrase that you shouldn’t play off local low-wage workers or the poor against the newcomers. Inexpensive apartments in Germany’s big cities are scarce – and an apartment can only be rented out once.
How about the municipalities where apartments are empty?
The large migration movement from Ukraine comes as a surprise, just like that from Syria in 2015/16. Only this time it’s even faster. It usually takes years for the necessary apartments to be built, and a quick remedy through new buildings is not feasible. Immigrants play a central role in the housing market, which is often underestimated. In the past decade, around half a million people have come to Germany every year, and by the way, only a minority of them are asylum seekers. Most are the sought-after professionals, spouses, EU citizens looking for happiness. It was not until 2018 that the federal government at the time, together with the federal states, launched a program worth billions for more affordable housing. Previously, one had watched for years as the social housing was becoming less and less. It’s paying off now.
Nevertheless, the state is not powerless. The people now have to be distributed to individual cities and communities. There are still numerous communities away from the big cities where apartments are empty. They need new citizens to save entire neighborhoods from the downward spiral of out-migration, store closures and decay. Refugees can move in there. However, the communities should offer more than just a free apartment, the families in particular also need places in day-care centers and schools, language courses and ultimately work. Now is the time for such churches to woo the newcomers.
The situation is different in many large cities, cheap apartments must be built here, even if they will only remedy the situation in a few years. 400,000 new apartments every year, that’s what the traffic light has in mind anyway. It is quite possible that even that will not be enough.