My first long read from November 2020 introduced basic issues and major campaigns, including that of Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen (Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.) to take back the social housing Berlin had sold for a pittance. In 2018, when I first saw a poster about expropriating the big housing corporations that pay prime dividends to stockholders while exploiting tenants, I thought it was a good joke. However, it turned out to be a serious campaign and I joined in, collecting signatures and canvassing for the referendum.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? On Berlin's housing crunch and responses to it
In early February 2021, I addressed the problem of commercial rents and explained important developments.
"HOUSES FOR THE PEOPLE WHO READ IN THEM!" A Berlin Housing Update
In mid-May 2021 I published
URGENTLY NEEDED: LESS "PROFITABILITY" AND MORE HUMANITY
With feedback from German-speaking members of the editorial team, I published two blog posts for the Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen website in September 2021, SO SIEHT DEMOKRATIE AUS! (THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!) and WENN SIE GEWINNEN, VERLIEREN WIR: Über die angestrebte Fusion von Vonovia und Deutsche Wohnen (WHEN THEY WIN, WE LOSE: On the proposed merger of Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen). The merger went through and, unsurprisingly, Vonovia announced substantial rent increases soon thereafter. (Because the DWE blog is no longer online, I have removed the invalid links and published the texts here.)
For a few years, it seemed that nothing much was happening. But after an expert commission had spent more than a year of studying the Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen referendum – that 59.1% of Berliners approved, more any other Berlin referendum –, I published an article on 15 July 2023.
WE TOLD YOU SO! A commission of experts proves Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen right
Added to years of only bad news about missed housing-construction targets, a more flagrantly racist approach to politics and policing, and more surreptitious ways of gentrifying became obvious. I published this article on 29 September 2024.
"Fence up, floodlights on, gates locked – problem solved!"
In November 2023, I followed news of the Dublin riots with great unease. Then, while spending a month in Dublin in fall 2024, I heard many causal comments blaming "foreigners" – especially for the lack of affordable housing. But that huge problem is due to years of neoliberal policies by the same parties seeking re-election in 2024, who have also been dog-whistling far-right groups. My article on the subject was published the eve of the Irish parliamentary elections.