Post photo: Pixabay
During my entire election campaign, one topic was there from the beginning and ran like a red thread through almost all discussions - the housing problem in Heilbronn and the surrounding area.
If you read the election programs of the various parties and listen to their corresponding statements, demands and promises, this should not be such a big issue in our city for a long time.
In the sometimes very heated discussions with desperate people looking for housing, housing providers, representatives of churches, aid organizations and associations, as well as other campaigners, I have to draw the conclusion that none of us here in Heilbronn are fully aware of the problem and that is why it is very urgent there is a need for action.
It is obvious to each of us that everyone must be able to live! A person who does not have an adequate place to retreat is harmed and, as soon as this affects several people, represents a potential for conflict for the entire citizenry. To put it positively: sufficient living space pacifies our city and makes it even more livable and lovable.
However, one should not succumb to the temptation to tackle this problem centrally and administratively - such attempts have always failed resoundingly.
It would therefore be necessary not only to network all directly and indirectly involved actors with each other as quickly as possible, to include existing solution approaches, such as the "Karlsruher Model", and to create and keep up to date an assessment of the situation with possible solution approaches that is available to everyone.
This must then result in a politically coordinated concept of how we want to tackle this problem in the short, medium and long term, with which preferences and priorities. The resulting targets must then also be consistently monitored and, if necessary, sanctioned.
In the coming election campaign, I no longer want to have to argue about whether and why there is a shortage of living space or who is to blame for the whole misery, but about how we can best and fastest achieve our jointly defined targets.
"Home is wherever we are."
Stanley Tucci as Paul Child in Julie & Julia (2009)
