Subsidized housing in Emsdetten

Emsdetten is a town in the district of Steinfurt, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It has about 36.000 inhabitants. Even though the town has many companies that provide work places, 3.7 percent – which are 1.332 people – of the population are unemployed, and the number has increased since September 2019. Furthermore, many people work in jobs where their income is not enough to pay for their rent and to care for themselves. Regarding to that, there are people that need to apply for subsidized housing. As the city hall of Emsdetten says, more than half of the inhabitants have applied for subsidized housing and do need it. Why do people apply for subsidized housing? When people are not able to take care of themselves – maybe their children as well – and to pay for their rent due to their low income, they need help from the government so that they have the ability to care for them and their families. Therefore towns provide social housings that are either built for low-income people or that have a low rent so people can afford to live there. The perfect solution to solve that problem? Unfortunately not. Though it is an opportunity for people to be able to take care of themselves and to be more financially stable, there are still problems. In such a small town as Emsdetten, there is no possibility to provide subsidized housing to every household that needs it. As I already mentioned before, more than half of Emsdetten’s population are in need of subsidized housing which are round about 18.000 people. The town has an area of 72.06 km², which are 500 inhabitants per square kilometer. It is impossible to build enough houses or flats so that everyone can live in subsidized housings. Moreover, not everyone who rents out house or a flat can lower his rent so that low-income people are able to afford it because renting houses could be their only source of income. So there are no subsidized housings in Emsdetten? No, there are. In Emsdetten, 751 flats are provided for people with a low income. But unfortunately, this number will decrease. The town plans to make over 250 of these flats available for every inhabitant, regardless of their income. That means that the rent for these flats will increase over the next ten years. This is positive for people who are looking for a new flat, but negative for those people, who cannot afford to live there. All in all, it is quite hard to be financially stable and take care of their family and themselves for low-income people who live in a small town like Emsdetten.