Minister Geywitz warns: If you want housing benefit, you have to wait months

Inflation and rising rents are depressing the incomes of many people in the country, but 1.4 million will benefit from the housing benefit reform. But the construction minister now admits that the offices will initially be completely overwhelmed.

According to the Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz, anyone who tries to get the subsidy as part of the housing benefit reform at the turn of the year will have to wait several weeks for the payment to be made. “It can be assumed that the processing time will increase more,” said the SPD politician of the “Bild” newspaper. “If you submit an application by January 1st, it will be approved in March.” The authorities are “in front of a huge mountain of files”. The housing benefit for January and February will then be paid out retrospectively. Geywitz therefore spoke of “additional volume” that would come to the housing benefit offices.

The housing benefit is a state subsidy for rent for households that do not receive social benefits but still have little money. From January, more households in Germany should be relieved. The housing benefit is also to be increased by an average of 190 euros to around 370 euros a month, as the Bundestag decided last week. According to the government, two million households could benefit from the new housing benefit, 1.4 million more than before. The minister said there was a lot more work to be done for the employees in the housing benefit offices.

The housing benefit will be restructured at the same time. In the future there will be a permanent heating cost component that will be included in the calculation of the housing benefit as a supplement to the rent or burden to be taken into account. A climate component takes into account rent increases due to energy measures. In addition, the general formula for calculating housing benefit has been changed.

The Bundestag passed the reform on November 10 – the Bundesrat still has to approve it at the end of the month. The Federal Association of Consumer Advice Centers had warned of overloading the offices at the beginning of the new year when implementing the housing benefit reform. “At the beginning of the year there is a risk of official chaos, so that people would have to wait weeks or even months for processing and payment,” said association leader Ramona Pop recently to “Welt”.