The pendulum binders of a leading manufacturer of filing systems are – how could it be otherwise – gray. Four piles of files that are otherwise hanging in the closet are waiting on the desk in the housing office to be processed. Only the numbers on the side, which bring order, are colorful. The number signals, as the manufacturer calls them, are self-adhesive and are attached by hand when a new application for housing benefit is received in writing or online. The digits give the housing benefit number, they make it possible to find the housing benefit file in the basement of the administration building, where an estimated 60,000 files are stored. The electronic file is to come, but when is not yet certain.
Applying for housing benefit is not child’s play because of the eight-page form – but the approval is anything but a pleasure. This quickly becomes clear when you visit Werinherstraße 87, where the central housing benefit office of the municipal office for housing and migration is housed in a modern building that seems almost sterile.
It is not an easy job for the approximately 65 employees, many of whom work part-time, because over the years the mountain of applications has grown faster than it can be processed. At the end of February, 11,722 applications were “pending or being processed”, as it is called in administrative jargon. 2583 applications were received in January alone, 133 percent more than in the same month last year. In February there were 2239, double the figure for the same month last year. The new Wohngeld Plus, which has been intended to bring significantly more money to people on low incomes since January, has seen the number of applications rise significantly since September. A tripling, as expected, has not yet occurred.
At least 1079 applications were finally processed in January and 1103 in February. While the processing time was twelve months last year, it has now risen to 13 months, says the head of the department. He asks for your understanding that he does not want his name mentioned. The clerk, on whose desk the files are piled up, doesn’t want that either. The hostilities are too great because of the long waiting times, the experiences are too bad, the threats that could then end up in their e-mail inbox are too bad.
The pressure on the employees is great, even though 17 new employees have been recruited and are now being trained. This takes six months because the regulations are complicated. “It’s an endless loop, we can’t do more than work and try our best,” says the clerk. Ten more positions are to be added.
Nobody in the social department is happy with this reform, even if nobody denies that the help is important. Although Munich and other large cities have campaigned for a simplification of the permit with concrete proposals via the City Day, this did not happen. Social officer Dorothee Schiwy already spoke of a “bureaucratic monster”. “It has become even more complex,” says the clerk and groans.
Torment for them – and for the applicants. Because in 95 percent of the cases “a lot of information is missing, not all questions have been answered or the necessary certificates are not enclosed”. Then the clerk has to send out a cover letter to collect all of this. If she’s lucky, everything will be there after four weeks. However, this often gives rise to new questions. The only simplification is that approval is possible for 24 instead of 12 months if, as is the case with pensioners, no significant changes in circumstances are to be expected.
A central counseling center for housing benefit plus is to be set up at Werinherstraße 87, where applications for housing benefit will also be processed.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
For the head of the housing benefit office, the hope for a reduction in bureaucracy has not been fulfilled. Because the dissatisfaction with the long waiting times for housing benefit is great, he and his employees do not want to appear in public with their names.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In order to keep the additional effort as low as possible, the city has already started to train 500 employees from welfare organizations in housing benefit advice in their facilities. In addition, the city council has now decided to set up a central advice center for housing benefit plus at Werinherstraße 87 on April 3rd. It will initially offer five full-time positions with competent advice, so that “ideally, the majority of applications that are likely to be entitled to housing benefit will then be received,” says Mayor Verena Dietl. The housing allowance calculator on the city’s website actually allows a fairly reliable estimate of the entitlement, says the head of the housing allowance office, but only if the gross and net amounts are not confused.
In 2022, not even every second processed application for housing benefit was successful. The income must be neither too high nor too low. If they are not sufficient to cover living expenses and rent together with the housing benefit, social assistance or citizen benefit must be applied for. A rough preliminary clarification could therefore help to avoid hopeless applications.
A good third of the housing benefit applications come from pensioners, together with families who have several children, they make up the largest proportion of recipients. The clerk has an application made in February 2022 on her desk and is checking the information to see whether the family still lives at the address given. It turns out that there is a fifth adult child who is not listed on the application for the household. Does it already have an income or is it still going to school? So another cover letter for clarification. “I also ask everything else, there could have been a rent increase in the meantime.” Sometimes the child benefit notification or the notification of the maintenance advance is missing. “All income must be declared, even from mini-jobs or foreign pensions,” says the clerk. In any case, only the person who signed the rental agreement can submit the application.
So there are a whole lot of pitfalls. And her superior concedes: “The application form is overwhelming. But slimming down only goes hand in hand with a streamlining of the legal basis.” The clerk adds that it was already foreseeable last year that federal politics would not take care of this. After all, the payments have increased significantly thanks to Wohngeld Plus, says her boss. In principle, the expansion of the circle of beneficiaries is also to be welcomed.
In 2021, just 0.4 percent of Munich households received housing benefit. The tripling that the federal government is aiming for is therefore far too low, says Schiwy. Above all, it would be necessary to adjust the maximum rental amounts applicable to housing benefit to the actual rental situation in Munich. And of course a reduction in bureaucracy.