Priced out by corporate landlords, Berlin renters fight back

Berlin, Germany – Last year, documentary filmmaker Felix Gaedtke got the kind of news that renters anywhere in the world would dread. But in Berlin, where 85 percent of the population rents the roofs over their heads, it has also inspired a controversial grassroots campaign to nationalise large swaths of the city’s corporate-owned housing stock. “We want this to be the beginning of a more social housing market in Berlin, and the only way to do that is to increase and make thriving public stock to work against the market,” DWE campaigner Thomas McGath told Al Jazeera. They are exhausting any sort of judicial tools and methods to get around this rising rent storm.” We want this to be the beginning of a more social housing market in Berlin by Thomas McGath, DWE campaigner Haven to nightmare A combination of population growth and poor policy decisions have turned Berlin’s formerly renter-friendly housing market into a renter’s nightmare. “Senate officials calculate the cost with current market prices, while campaign members argue that the city doesn’t have to pay the full market price,” said Henger.