The Left Party in the Saxon state parliament has called for a change in the social housing system - "away from bureaucratic, inflexible application procedures towards a non-profit housing system". "Those who make a long-term commitment to social housing should be rewarded with tax breaks and preferential access to federal funding and public land," MP Juliane Nagel told the German Press Agency. In return, the companies should commit to purely cost-covering rent levels and profits must be reinvested. This type of non-profit housing already existed in Germany until 1990 and accounted for almost a third of the housing stock at the time.
Nagel pointed out that a funding instrument for social housing has been in place again in Saxony since 2017 with the funding guideline for tied rental housing. "This was long overdue, as the number of apartments for people on low incomes fell rapidly for years." In 2015, more than 20,000 apartments in Leipzig were no longer subject to rent control. The high number of social housing units in Dresden, on the other hand, is due to the privatization of the municipal housing association. At the time, the city had negotiated fixed rents for 10,000 apartments. "However, this regulation expires in 2036, and the loss of these social housing units must be compensated for." Nagel regularly asks small questions on the subject in the state parliament.
