Hamburg pays about 8,500 euros a month for each flat it uses to house refugees and homeless people
Hamburg paid 7.8 million euros last year to rent 77 flats in the Mundsburg Tower, a high-rise in the Barmbek-Süd area used to accommodate homeless people and refugees. That works out at roughly 8,500 euros a month for each flat. The figures come from the city government's written answer to a question tabled by the opposition Christian Democrats, and the flats concerned range from about 35 to 65 square metres.
The money does not go to a private landlord. It goes to Fördern & Wohnen, the city's own housing operator, which owns one of the three Mundsburg towers. The same operator also rents out 56 flats in the building on the ordinary private market, and charges those tenants an average of about 1,550 euros a month. It is that gap — roughly five times more for the same building — that prompted the question. The Christian Democrat who tabled it argues a municipal operator should not be charging the state rates of this kind, and notes the operator is carrying close to a billion euros in loans.
City government sources give a different account. The tower was bought at the height of the refugee influx, when accommodation was being secured quickly. It badly needs renovation. Some residents are long-standing tenants whose older, cheaper contracts were taken over with the building. The flats used for public accommodation cost more in part because services such as security staff are paid for out of the same budget. The finance and social affairs authorities are currently working on what happens to the tower next.
For the people living there, nothing changes immediately. The building has 133 flats in total, was completed in 1977, and has housed refugees from Ukraine since the early summer of 2022. It was chosen partly for its central position and transport links, and the operator said at the time that the flats were meant to offer a longer-term prospect to people who struggle on the housing market. The practical point is that the tower's future is now under active review, so decisions on renovation, or on moving residents, may follow.