We had a dream, it was small and modest, we thought… It was about affordable rents and the right to live. That dream seemed at least within reach in 2020, the year Felix Krakau and Yuval Halpern’s real estate infotainment OPERA FOR SALE premiered: “As of February 2020, rents for about 1.5 million […] apartments were frozen at June 2019 levels. Rents that were more than 20 percent above the ceilings [were] prohibited by law.” (Berliner Morgenpost, 16.4.21) Now the rent cap has been overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, tenants* face great uncertainties – and we all face the next round in the concrete gold monopoly.
Learn more about real estate speculation and the struggle for decent housing in our web series Opera for Sale and on the Angel Dust Company site.
PS: Hope dies last. Because, Sebastian Scheel, Senator for Urban Development and Housing is not giving up: “In the Senate we […] will discuss the consequences of the ruling. The Senate [feels] obliged to develop socially acceptable solutions for tenants.” (Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing)
written by Änne-Marthe Kühn (dramaturgy)