A Call To Action

Together against Rent Hike Madness
Call for protest in Berlin on March 28, 2020

In recent times we have all experienced rent hikes. The cause is in part renovations, but also lease terminations, vacated buildings and evictions. Maybe others of us fear that it is going to be us, our favourite grocery store, cinema, preschool or corner bar that falls victim to these changes next. It doesn’t have to be like this. We have had enough!

The inequality of our living and housing conditions is not a law of nature. It is the result of the commercialization of our basic needs. As long as land and housing remain privatized, there will be speculation through intentional vacancy, and the rent hike madness will continue — at our cost!

Therefore, we must fight for a city that is not a business model, but belongs to everyone— regardless of origin, language, age or other differences — and where no one has to live in camps, shelters or on the streets.

Unity and solidarity against social injustice

s rents grow, so does our resistance! Last April, 280 initiatives in Berlin alone called for a demonstration against evictions, displacement and the commoditization of our basic needs. 40,000 people joined this protest! Since then many of us, together with our buildings and neighborhoods, founded tenants’ organizations and Right-to-the-City advocacy groups, blocked forced evictions, occupied empty apartments and buildings, as well as created self-administered housing projects and housing cooperatives.

This demonstrates how powerful united and widespread resistance can be: Together we were able to prevent lease terminations, rent hikes and instances of privatization. Housing blocks were re-municipalized and the real estate lobby now fears expropriation, because the Berlin Senate introduced a few new housing policy reforms. And yet, limited neighborhood preservation ordinances (Milieuschutz) and an inadequate rent cap is far from enough! So our united, self-organizing struggle continues!

We pose our unity, solidarity and diversity against a city with runaway rents that belongs only to a select few.

We fight together for:

  • radical shift in the course of housing politics,
  • the communalization of housing and land,
  • the democratic involvement and self-determination of tenants in residential buildings,
    an end to forced evictions,
  • the decriminalization of tenant strikes, occupation of vacant spaces and the elimination of the ‘Berliner Linie’ (eviction within 24 hours)

We must resist!