It's a typical situation for a student apartment-sharing community: after a roommate moved out at short notice, Pauli, who is studying sociology in Darmstadt, was looking for a new roommate for her flat-share.
She placed an advertisement on a relevant apartment page online: One room, student flat-share, € 400 monthly rent.
“Within a short period of time I received a lot of messages, even though there weren't even any pictures in the beginning,” says Pauli.
“Many of the messages sounded desperate and unspecific, as if they had been sent to many people in the same form.” Almost like little cries for help.
The fact that there is a problem with the housing market in many university towns is not a new phenomenon. For years, student representatives all over Germany have been calling for the expansion of affordable living space. Temporary emergency accommodation, such as the one currently being organized by the AStA at the University of Cologne, is nothing new. However, the situation is currently even worse. This is to a large extent due to Corona.
“The student housing shortage is particularly evident at the beginning of this winter semester. Because of the pandemic and digital teaching, many students moved back in with their parents for financial reasons. Students who only started their studies in the past semesters often never even moved to their study cities. Students from several academic years are now looking for affordable housing at the same time, ”writes Matthias Konrad, member of the board of directors of the Free Association of Student Unions (fzs), in a press release. Together with the new freshmen, there is an increased demand, which hits a housing market that hardly relaxed despite lower demand during the pandemic.According to the MLP Student Housing Report 2021, rents have risen in 19 of 30 university cities studied - an average of 1.8 percent for apartments and 0.9 percent for rooms in shared apartments. While this is less than in previous years, the report suggests that it is likely to be a temporary phenomenon. The situation could even worsen drastically in the next few semesters due to increased demand.
Short lead time
A look at the various housing portals on the Internet also reveals a tense situation for the students. In Frankfurt, for example, only a fraction of the rooms in shared apartments are offered for less than 500 euros, not to mention 1-room apartments. Frankfurt is one of the most expensive university cities in Germany, but rents in other cities are in most cases above the BAföG flat-rate flat rate of 325 euros. It doesn't look much better for places in student dormitories. On request, Matthias Anbuhl, Secretary General of the German Student Union, wrote: “Since October, tens of thousands of students have been on the waiting list for a place in a dormitory at the student union.” A little insight: According to Anbuhl, around 15,000 students are waiting for a place in the dormitory at the Munich Student Union;at the Studentenwerk Frankfurt am Main there are 3000. In Hamburg there are 2000 students, in Heidelberg 2300 and in Hanover 2100.
This situation is difficult in itself, but it becomes even more difficult for some students: Due to unclear communication at some universities, it was not clear to what extent classroom teaching would be compulsory until shortly before the start of the semester. An example of this is the Ruhr University in Bochum, which has expressed the wish throughout the summer to hold the winter semester in attendance, but did not make any binding regulations. "On September 24th. I received an internal email that implied that as many events as possible should be put into attendance in the winter semester, ”explains Marcel Schmittchen, who has been working as a research assistant at the Chair of Information and Technology Management for several years. On 09/28 was this fact communicated to all employees at the university,about 2 weeks before the start of the semester. For students who up to then (temporarily) did not live on-site, this was equivalent to an obligation to move to the vicinity of the university at short notice - an extremely short period of time in order to find affordable accommodation.