Left Party group leader Pellmann demands 25 billion euros a year for social housing
The Left Party calls Building Minister Hubertz's plans to leverage private investment in housing via the Deutschlandfonds “eyewash”.
Archive image · Photo: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Sören Pellmann, leader of the Left Party group in the Bundestag, has sharply criticised the federal government's housing plans. Federal Building Minister Verena Hubertz (SPD) wants to use the state-backed Deutschlandfonds to mobilise private investment in housing construction. Speaking to the Rheinische Post, as reported by the dts news agency, Pellmann called it “eyewash” that the government was relying on leveraging private investment. Public-private partnerships missed the problem and channelled even more public money to the wrong partners, he said.
Instead, Pellmann proposes an annual investment programme of 25 billion euros for social housing to bring rents down to an affordable level. Hubertz had told Der Spiegel that a dedicated housing fund was meant to test the market and leverage private capital for affordable, climate-friendly housing. Housing policy is currently one of the central points of contention in German politics, not least because of the Berlin plans by the Left, the Greens and the SPD to socialise large housing portfolios.