Left-wing politician Juliane Nagel gives the state government a bad report card when it comes to housing policy and calls for the state to intervene. "The state must not stay out of the housing market - otherwise only people who can afford high rents and expensive properties will benefit. Everyone else runs the risk of being squeezed out," explained the politician in Dresden. Her party has had to laboriously wrest every little housing policy initiative from the coalition of Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU).
"For a long time, it has allowed living space to be misappropriated for vacation apartments or commercial premises or kept empty in the expectation of higher returns. Only recently have local authorities been allowed to take action against this," emphasized Nagel. The rent cap for Dresden and Leipzig also came very late and is not sufficient because it allows rents that are too high and does not apply to new builds or furnished rooms. The number of social housing units has fallen sharply - from 134,000 units in 2006 to 12,500 in 2022. "Even now, when the construction industry is in crisis, there is no intelligent investment policy in sight. The funding guidelines are still too complicated and there is a lack of money."
