“The audacity of some owners is sickening”
The social alderman of the City of Luxembourg wants higher penalties for bad apples who notably cut off the heating of tenants.
housing market
The social alderman of the City of Luxembourg wants higher penalties for bad apples who notably cut off the heating of tenants.
(MKa with David THINNES) – “The owner wanted to do some work in his building. Since he couldn’t get the tenants out fast enough, he simply removed the staircase. The tenants lived on the first floor, with a young child”: this example of an incident that occurred in a furnished room located on the territory of the capital remains engraved in the memory of the social alderman of the City of Luxembourg, Maurice Bauer (CSV ).
The population of the capital has increased by nearly 30% over the past ten years, rising from 99,852 to 128,494 inhabitants. We need more and more housing. And few are those who can afford, for example, a price per square meter of more than 16,000 euros as at the Royal-Hamilius.
There are tenants who are exploited.
Maurice Bauer, social alderman of the capital
City officials are always looking for more housing. Currently, the housing stock of the City of Luxembourg has 719 dwellings. This figure breaks down as follows: 604 affordable housing – the name was recently changed from social to affordable (subsidized by the Ministry of Housing) -, 40 “assisted housing” – formerly, the term was affordable (unsubsidized) – and 75 furnished rooms already indicated.
Black figure: 2,000 furnished rooms
However, the number of “café-zimmers” reveals another problem. “These are rooms labeled and controlled by the City of Luxembourg. We estimate that there are about 2,000 furnished rooms in the territory of the capital, in 325 buildings. But for 80 buildings, we don’t know how many rooms there are,” explains Anouck Speltz, head of the housing department of the City of Luxembourg.
The lessor of furnished rooms should in principle declare them to the municipality, but this is often not the case. The municipality is therefore often only informed of the existence of such rooms when the tenant contacts the City of Luxembourg in the event of a problem. And that’s not always the case either.
Because indeed, “there are tenants who are exploited. They often do not have the means to defend themselves or do not know that they have the right to do so, ”explains Maurice Bauer, who nevertheless underlines that the majority of owners behave correctly.
It is necessary to keep the attention on the fact that “the municipality must protect the tenants”. We must not allow these people to slide into a situation of dependence vis-à-vis their donor. This is what we often observe in single women or mothers who smoke what is left on the housing market. Often, only verbal contracts are concluded”.
Increase fines
Bauer demands that owners of furnished rooms who do not comply with the rules of the 2019 law be more severely sanctioned: “Currently, there is only a fine of three months’ rent. Sometimes, the owners already give us a check when a renter of their house has to be rehoused elsewhere. But this fine must be ten or twenty times higher. The criminal route should also be sanctioned”.
In Limpertsberg, the City of Luxembourg offers affordable housing.
Photo: Chris Karaba
The City of Luxembourg is constantly striving to create new housing: “As everywhere in the Grand Duchy, housing is a rare commodity. We therefore want to increase our housing stock”. The construction of housing is described in the Council of Aldermen’s statement as follows: “The creation of housing, especially social and affordable housing, is the first priority of the Council of Aldermen”.
Maurice Bauer notes in general that “the pressure on the housing market is enormous”. The municipality is doing everything possible to create housing.
Rent between 400 and 450 euros per month
This is how a waiting list of 600 people is formed for social housing in the city of Luxembourg. In the event of a request or vacated accommodation, the competent department analyzes certain parameters: family and social situation, size of accommodation and income. “On average, the tenants of our social housing paid rent of 400 to 450 euros per month,” explains Anouck Speltz.
Rue Münster is home to social housing in the City of Luxembourg.
Photo: Guy Jallay/LW-Archives
In this area, everything is going according to plan. The situation is more difficult in some cases for furnished rooms. “The audacity of some owners is sickening. There are tenants who live in the cellar, without windows. Sometimes the heating or the electricity are turned off to disgust people”.
If a person loses their accommodation following a court decision, the municipality must find new accommodation for these people.
Heating or electricity are sometimes cut off to get people out.
Maurice Bauer, social alderman of the capital
In the event of an emergency, two emergency hostels are available: on the one hand, the Obenthalt hostel in Bonnevoie (capacity: 36 people) and the Moulin d’Eydt hostel in Pfaffenthal (56 people).
In this context, the social alderman of the CSV recalls, however, that the services of the municipality must sometimes intervene: “Our social workers regularly visit people in the apartments. And it happens that the apartments remained in very poor condition. So sometimes you have to do a lot of educational work”.
This article was written for the German edition of the Luxemburger Wort, translated and edited for the French version of the site.
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