Zwischen Wohnen und Nicht-Wohnen

The housing question is back. Displacement and segregation, the increasing burden of housing costs, a growing sublet market and the deterioration of housing quality through disinvestment are just some of the indications for the thesis that a “grey zone of housing hardship” is spreading into the so-called middle class. The threshold to homelessness is also getting closer. The article classifies qualitative dimensions of insecure, inadequate, deprived, cramped or overcrowded, pauperised and endangered housing situations. All these types of housing hardship are characterised by the fact that, although there is a roof overhead, established standards of decent housing are being violated. In times of the housing crisis the article argues in favour of a broader concept of housing hardship, which includes living situations that are not even defined as homelessness, with the aim of bringing back the housing question to the political agenda.