Two million households will be entitled to housing benefit in the future, more than three times as many as before. The Federal Council has just approved the new regulation. However, many of those entitled will have to be patient for a long time: the municipalities are expecting massive delays.
From the point of view of the municipalities, the housing benefit for significantly more entitled persons can only be paid out with a delay of months. The main reason is the lack of staff in the responsible authorities. "It already takes three to six months to process an application for housing benefit," said Gerd Landsberg, general manager of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, of the "Bild" newspaper. "It will expand significantly."
In addition to the conversion of the software to new parameters, a wave of new applications is coming to the municipalities. "We don't have the people to work them off quickly." The cities had advertised the positions but could not fill them. North Rhine-Westphalia's building minister, Ina Scharrenbach, is also anticipating massive delays and problems with implementation. "Right from the start, the federal government had the goal of pushing through the housing benefit reform with all its might. It will get a black eye in the process," said the CDU politician. There is a lack of staff to process the applications, and new employees can only be trained from mid-December.
"We assume that under the new law, housing benefit applications can only be approved from April 2023 and then retrospectively," said the NRW Minister. A rush to the housing benefit offices is already noticeable. Hardly any country has taken precautions for possible advance payments. They would also bring duplication of work for the administrations. The Federal Council approved the reform on Friday. According to this, next year, in addition to the 600,000 households nationwide, up to 1.4 million more could be entitled to a state subsidy for rent. Households that do not receive social benefits but still have little money can apply for housing benefit.
