“The current housing situation is a conscious political decision by citizens”

Last week I illustrated the housing shortage in Switzerland using the canton of Zug in a series of articles entitled “Living is luxury”. On the one hand, I spoke to a desperate single mother and caregiver who couldn’t find a cheap apartment in her canton. On the other hand, I visited an apartment that costs 7,700 francs in rent and that consciously appeals to expats. Is this gap between rich and poor, between locals and expats, a representative picture of the housing situation in the canton of Zug?
Philippe Koch: Yes absolutely. I am from Zug myself and have been observing for twenty years how the rich are steadily and increasingly displacing the poor on the housing market. Expats are an important factor in this: their employers often pay the housing costs of these high-earning skilled workers from abroad who work and live in Switzerland for one to three years.

Which people are most affected by this repression?
A study by ETH Zurich recently showed that women, people with a migrant background and people with a low income are particularly displaced. What is striking is that it is people who keep our cities and communities running: bus drivers, salespeople, postal workers, the nurse from your report. This phenomenon has been observed worldwide since the 1980s.

Does this have consequences for society as a whole?
Yes, it ultimately leads to division and polarization of spaces. The special thing about this development is that people who have difficulty making their voices heard politically are being pushed out. Either because they do not have the right to vote, or because they are not able to engage politically.

The nurse told me that sometimes she wonders why she doesn’t collapse. But with a lack of nursing staff at work, having to look for housing when there is a housing shortage, and her two-year-old daughter, she wouldn’t have time for that.
Unfortunately, I often hear such brutal stories in Switzerland. It always makes me all the more baffled how ignorant and arrogant certain parties and politicians still respond to these real problems that people face.

Are these parties and politicians also responsible for the current misery?
Yes. With regard to the canton of Zug, one can clearly say: the current housing situation is a conscious political decision of a bourgeois majority that has consistently reduced taxes on capital. This means that people with assets and companies that mainly generate sales abroad are given preference in the canton of Zug.

Yet there is not only a housing shortage in the canton of Zug.
Yes, because we can observe the movement of certain population groups from cities all over Switzerland: in Basel, in Geneva, in Zurich, in Lausanne. It is therefore important to emphasize that there is no general housing shortage in Switzerland. Anyone who is willing to pay a lot can always easily find an apartment. We are in a housing crisis that is affecting a very specific segment of the population.

The lower class.
And increasingly also the middle class. In the canton of Zug, the upper middle class is slowly starting to appear.

In our comment columns, many users said: “Then people should just move somewhere else. There is no right to live in the city.” What do you say about such statements?
That’s an interesting point of view. Because you can actually say: Yes, that’s true. There is no right to live in a certain place. But the question arises to what extent it is justified that only your willingness to pay determines where you can have your center of life. Housing has many different consequences. In the canton of Zurich, for example, it makes a big difference which municipality you live in, as it makes it easier or more difficult to receive services. For example, public transport that runs late into the night or competitively priced daycare centers. I think that on a political and social level you can certainly answer the question of whether someone should have the right to live in a certain place. And if so, under what conditions?

But that’s just how capitalism works: money decides.
That’s how it is. I can have a Prada bag, but I have to pay 5,000 francs for it. But I think: Living is not a Prada bag.

Housing is a basic need.
Correct. Unfortunately, since the 1950s, the economy has evolved in a direction where land is no longer seen as a vital resource that should serve the common good, but instead functions as an investment. Rental income is just a happy side effect. Investors make the biggest profit by increasing land values.

There was already a housing shortage in Switzerland in the 1980s. What caused that at the time? And it’s over again?
The housing shortage at that time was accompanied by a crash in which many banks and real estate companies went bankrupt because they had invested incorrectly. As a result, construction activity in Switzerland came to a standstill. However, the housing shortage in the 1980s was mainly limited to the centres. At the time, the solution could be found by building wide.

So by creating living space in agglomerations.
Precisely. But today that is almost impossible. Nowadays we need to create more living space within existing residential areas. This is a complex matter. As a result, old residential areas and settlements are increasingly coming under pressure. They will be demolished and rebuilt as part of the “densification”. All long-term residents who had low rent in the old building will be given a notice period and will no longer be able to pay for the new apartments that are being built. This makes the housing shortage even worse because people are looking for housing in the demolished buildings. The housing shortage in the 1980s was therefore not nearly as great as the current housing shortage.

Federal councilor Guy Parmelin has now presented an “action plan against the housing shortage”. Will this help?
Well, at least I think it’s a good thing that housing policy is being discussed at the federal level. Since the 1960s, the federal government has always maintained that creating housing is a matter for municipalities and especially the private sector, and has taken hardly any action. In that respect, this action plan is a step forward.

It seems like the bar has been set very low.
Yes, you can’t lower the bar. In all other countries of continental Europe, there are more substantial housing policies at the federal level than in Switzerland.

What do you think specifically of Parmelin’s action plan?
He’s disappointing. And from my point of view purely symbolic politics. But I hope it is a start towards a better housing policy.

What do you think are concrete solutions that could quickly make a big difference in the housing shortage?
I can only offer you a politically unrealistic solution.

Shoot away.
The land should be withdrawn from speculation and profit-oriented, as with housing rights in rural areas. This does not mean that living space cannot be created with returns in mind. But the land price would be capped. It could not rise to immeasurable heights. This suggestion is nothing new. In many areas where essential resources are involved, prices are limited. However, a price ceiling for land will probably never be introduced politically.

Are there any more realistic solutions?
Well, there are already well-known instruments for rents that have been systematically rejected politically for years.

Which instruments do you mean? Perhaps it should become easier to take action against illegal rent increases?
Yes, for example. Or that landlords must report the rents of the last two or three years and that there will be checks. As I said, these instruments have been known for a long time. We don’t need any further investigation into this. The political will of the majority in the National Council and the Council of States to improve the situation of tenants is simply not there. Instead, they want to improve the situation of landlords and owners.

They now always blamed bourgeois politics for the current housing shortage. Couldn’t you also say that the left has failed to stand up for the tenants?
Yes, you can certainly say that the left has failed in recent years to mobilize people around the issue of housing shortages and their solutions. But part of the problem, as I said, is that those first affected by the deteriorating housing situation were and are largely disenfranchised. But I think the vote on the 13th AHV just showed that social policy issues can mobilize people.