First anniversary of Deutsche Wohnen’s support for “Housing First” initiative
For one year now, Deutsche Wohnen has been supporting two social agencies that are putting the “Housing First” project into practice in Berlin. The approach that underpins this project is being successfully implemented in numerous cities worldwide in order to bring an end to homelessness. With the help of “Housing First”, flats are made available to homeless people unbureaucratically. In fact, in the course of its collaboration with the two agencies in Berlin, Deutsche Wohnen has been able to make a total of 21 flats available to date.
With the help of its model project “Housing First for Women”, the Catholic Women’s Social Service [Sozialdienst katholischer Frauen – SkF] has up to now been able to organise a total of 30 rental contracts for women who were formerly homeless, with Deutsche Wohnen providing 18 of these flats. Deutsche Wohnen has also been able to provide further flats in support of “Housing First Berlin”, a project run jointly by two charitable associations Neue Chance gGmbH and the Berliner Stadtmission. These associations work to organise housing for homeless men.
As Stefanie Koch, the director of Deutsche Wohnen Immobilien Management GmbH, explains, “In our promise to our tenants we emphasise that we will continue to strengthen the social engagement of Deutsche Wohnen. This is why the company supports numerous local associations and initiatives – primarily with housing but also with financial resources, commercial space and know-how. Here at Deutsche Wohnen, we are delighted that the “Housing First” project is running so successfully and that we are able to contribute significantly to its success by making housing available.”
In addition to supporting “Housing First”, Deutsche Wohnen has been working together for some years now with other social agencies that focus on providing a new start for women in distress. Since 2013, for example, the company has worked with the Berlin-based Hestia e.V., a charitable association that finds housing for women escaping from domestic violence, and has helped to provide new homes for these women and their children. Indeed, in 2019, Deutsche Wohnen was able to make 31 flats available for this purpose. A further long-standing partner is the charity Caritas with its project “NeuRaum – housing after the women’s refuge”. The idea of the project is that Caritas, as the project organiser, rents flats which it makes available to women and their children. Subsequently, it transfers the tenancy of these flats to them. Deutsche Wohnen has been supporting this project as a key partner since the beginning of 2016 by making housing available.
Deutsche Wohnen
Deutsche Wohnen is one of the leading publicly listed property companies in Germany and Europe with a business focus on managing and developing its portfolio, which consists mainly of residential properties. As at 31 December 2019, the portfolio comprised 164,000 units in total, of which 161,200 were residential and 2,800 commercial. Deutsche Wohnen owns flats in four Berlin Modernist estates, which were declared UNESCO world heritage sites in July 2008: the White City Estate, the Horseshoe Estate in Britz, the Carl Legien residential estate and the Ring Estate in Siemensstadt.