Changes in the social rented sector in Germany

Social rented housing provided by private institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany has made an important contribution to overcoming the housing shortage in the aftermath of the Second World War, and to achieving a high level of housing provision in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Promotion has traditionally been geared to the construction of new affordable dwellings for broad sections of the population. Given the positive economic and social development, a broadly-based supply of publicly and non-publicly assisted dwellings is now available and, as a result of increases in incomes, most people are in a position to provide themselves with adequate housing. The traditional form of assistance is therefore no longer appropriate. Types of assistance have therefore been developed since the end of the 1980s, making it possible - bearing in mind the prices on the market for non-assisted vented dwellings - to concentrate finding more accurately on lower-income social tenants in need. Problems connected with the traditional form of assistance arising from the changed general economic and housing policy conditions can, in principle, be resolved using these Me su methods of assistance.