Friday, January 12, 2018

Germans Worry About Housing

I noticed this mentioned today in Focus.   It's a page two-type story, which would rarely get much mention in German society today.

The German Caritas Association (Catholic welfare organization) did a survey, which had surprising numbers.

Across German society....three out of every four people....fear housing costs. 

It used to be normal for the low-income Germans to worry about rent, but the numbers indicate that even the middle-class now think about the cost of housing.

The term "weaken social cohesion" gets mentioned by the head of the survey (Peter Neher).  The suggestion of the survey?  There's a short list of things that political folks tend to worry about with the core voters (pension, taxation, child care, schools, etc).  Well....affordable housing is now edging up to the point of being a national worry.

If drove around Frankfurt today....looking for a three-bedroom apartment....it might take a pretty long drive to find such an apartment that fell into what you'd perceive as affordable. That situation repeats itself across a lot of major German cities.

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