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 that Berlin had sold for a pittance. In 2018, I saw a poster about expropriating the big housing corporations that pay prime dividends to stockholders while exploiting tenants and 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
After years of news about missed housing-construction targets, a more flagrantly racist approach to politics and policing and more surreptitious ways of gentrifying became obvious in the discussion about Görlitzer Park. This article was poublished 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. In fact the 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.