🔑 Finding your own home: specialist advice and Housing First
In brief
If you cannot find a home on your own, under §§ 67 ff. SGB XII (Chapter Eight: "Assistance to overcome special social difficulties") you have an entitlement in principle to support – for example advice, help with the housing search or outpatient supported housing. How exactly this help is designed is at the provider's discretion. "Housing First" – first your own home, then support – is in Germany a method implemented through existing instruments, but (still) not a nationwide, independent funding programme.
Step by step
- Contact a specialist advice centreContact a specialist advice centre for housing emergencies.
- Set out your need for helpSet out your need for help under §§ 67 ff. SGB XII – special social difficulties that cannot be overcome on your own.
- Use the supportUse support with the housing search and, where necessary, outpatient supported housing.
- Ask about Housing FirstAsk about Housing First services locally – there is no nationwide offer so far.
- Clarify housing costsIn parallel, clarify the takeover of housing costs through the Jobcenter or Sozialamt.
Deadlines
- §§ 67 ff. SGB XII establish an entitlement in principle ("are to be provided"), but the type and extent of the specific help are at the provider's discretion – no entitlement to a particular measure or home.
- Help under §§ 67 ff. SGB XII ranks below benefits under SGB VIII (child and youth services) and SGB IX (integration assistance) – for these target groups, ask there first.
- Housing First is in Germany not a statutory entitlement of its own, but a method implemented through existing instruments (§§ 67 ff. SGB XII plus housing costs) – services exist so far only in individual pilot projects/municipalities, not as a nationwide programme.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
§§ 67-69 SGB XII: assistance to overcome special social difficulties
§ 67 SGB XII grants people who, because of special living circumstances combined with social difficulties, cannot participate in community life, assistance to overcome these difficulties, provided they cannot overcome them on their own. § 68 SGB XII specifies the scope: among other things advice and personal support, help in keeping and obtaining a home, and outpatient supported housing. The help ranks below prior benefits under SGB VIII (child and youth services) and SGB IX (integration assistance).
Housing First in Germany
"Housing First" describes an approach in which those affected first receive their own, open-ended home and social support begins only afterwards – in contrast to the traditional stepped model (first shelter, then supported housing, then own home). It is not a statutory benefit entitlement of its own, but a professional method implemented with the existing instruments (§§ 67 ff. SGB XII, housing costs). Known pilot projects include Berlin (pilot project 2018–2021 of the Senate Department), Hamburg (since 2022, with a size of around 30 households reached by the end of 2024 according to project information) and Baden-Württemberg, as well as sites of the Bundesverband Housing First, including in Cologne, Bremen, Nuremberg and Düsseldorf. This information comes from project/association sources and is not officially consolidated in a federal statistic; a nationwide programme does not exist.
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