Before the start of the winter semester, many students in Hesse are still without an apartment. After two years of pandemic and online teaching, many are pushing back to the university cities.
Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - At the start of the 2022/23 winter semester, many students in Hesse are still looking for an apartment. The waiting lists for dormitories at the five student unions in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Gießen, Kassel and Marburg are long, according to a survey by the German Press Agency.
The situation is particularly tense in the Rhine-Main area. The Studierendenwerk Frankfurt received more than 6,000 applications for places in halls of residence this year, explained Sylvia Kobus, spokeswoman for the Studierendenwerk. There are currently over 3,000 students on the waiting list. "There is not enough affordable housing in the entire Rhine-Main area." The students would compete for this with other people looking for accommodation with a lower income. The Studierendenwerk offers around 3800 rooms in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Rüsselsheim and Geisenheim.
According to their own statements, the student union in the Main metropolis can only provide around five percent of the more than 75,000 students in their area of responsibility with the existing rooms. In addition to the Goethe University, the University of Applied Sciences and the Art and Music Academy in Frankfurt, the plant also oversees the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden and Rüsselsheim as well as the Offenbach and Geisenheim Universities. In addition to their own offers, there are rooms from churches and non-profit housing associations. According to the Studierendenwerk, a total of almost nine percent of the students can be supplied with this.
"The housing situation is getting worse and the waiting lists are getting longer every year," reported Tim Hoppe, housing officer at the General Students' Committee (AStA) in Frankfurt. "The anger of the students is huge." Finding a room on the private housing market for the 360 euros estimated as a BAföG flat rate is almost impossible.
The demand for affordable housing is therefore also high in Darmstadt. Around 2,500 students from the Technical University and the university are currently still waiting for a place in a hall of residence. An employee of the Studierendenwerk explained that the waiting list was the longest in nine years. Before the pandemic in August 2018, around 1,600 students were on the list, in recent years there have been between 1,200 and 1,400. According to the employee, more than 600 of the approximately 2,800 beds in eight halls of residence of the Studierendenwerk were allocated before this semester.
One reason for the high demand is the return to classroom teaching in the winter semester. After almost two years of digital online teaching due to the corona pandemic, many students did not have to move to their place of study. "The situation is more tense than in the past two years," said Matthias Nothnagel from the Kassel student union. Not only new students would come back to the university, but also students who had previously only studied online. There are currently 480 open applications for a place in a hall of residence. According to the Studierendenwerk, 310 of the approximately 1000 places in the halls of residence were reassigned for the winter semester.
The situation is similar at the Gießen student union. "The demand for dormitories has increased again compared to the past pandemic semesters," said Ralph Vogtmann from the Gießen student union. The plant at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen, the Technical University of Central Hesse in Friedberg and the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda offers a total of around 3,400 places in dormitories. The list of applicants currently includes a total of around 1700 students. 1,300 of them alone are looking for a room in Gießen.
There are also 1,300 students on the waiting list at the Marburg student union. "As always, the situation is tense in the winter semester," said Franziska Busch from the Studentenwerk. According to her, around 600 students were able to find accommodation in one of the 2,100 rooms on offer in September and October. For students who have not found a room by the beginning of the semester, the student union has set up 15 places in emergency accommodation. According to the information, short-term transitional quarters and emergency beds will also be available in Kassel and Gießen.
